ILLINOIS  HISTORICAL 


Round  about  Chicago 


FROM  A  WATER-COLOR  PAINTING  BY  DUDLEY  C.  WATSON 


The  lovliest  sight  —  the  whole  round  year" 


Round  about  Chicago 


By 

LOUELLA  CHAPIN 


Unity  Publishing   Company 

CHICAGO 


COPYRIGHT,  1907, 
BY  LOUELLA  CHAPIN 


PRESS  OP 
MARSH,  AITKEN  &  CURTIS  COMPANY 

CHICAGO 


• 

To  those  who  have  helped 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION       n 

GLENCOE 15 

RIVER  FOREST       31 

THORNTON        43 

THE  LAKE 57 

SAG 69 

PALOS  PARK 89 

THE  PARKS 103 

SEEING  CHICAGO 119 

LOTS 133 

RAVINIA 143 

DUNE  PARK 151 

SOUTH  SHORE 163 

PALOS  PARK,  AGAIN 171 

THE  SEASON  OF  FLOWERS 177 

FINIS       199 


Acknowledgment  is  due  to  Mr.  Dudley  C.  Watson  for  his  assist- 
ance in  preparing  the  illustrations,  which  are  from  photographs 
made  expressly  for  this  book  at  the  places  described. 


Round  about  Chicago 

WHEN  the  pronoun  we  occurs  in  what 
is  to  follow,  it  may  be  understood  to 
mean  the  following:  Mother,  a  bright, 
happy-hearted  woman,  just  as  old  as  her 
children;  her  son,  a  big  boy;  her  big  little 
girl,  called  Daisy;  and  an  o.  m.,  unattached; 
or  these  with  additions  or  subtractions.  When 
the  pronoun  I  is  used  it  may  be  understood 
to  mean  the  o.  m.,  which  may  also  be  written 
in  the  exclamatory  manner,  Oh!  Em! 

By  this  time  it  is  needless  to  say  that  the  o.  m. 
is  of  the  teaching  sisterhood.  Yet,  gentle  reader, 
turn  not  away ! 

We  are  alone  this  summer,  that  is,  without 
masculine  hindrance;  for  Father,  the  correlative 
of  Mother,  is  hence,  on  business  bent,  so  there 
are  no  meals  to  be  gotten  to  the  minute,  and  no 
reason  why  we  should  be  at  home  except  at  bed, 
time.  So  we  are  going,  all  of  us,  not  alone  the 
o.  m.,  to  have  a  taste  of  real  freedom  and  real 
joy, — of  the  harmless  country  kind,  I  hasten  to  add. 

We  may  wander  unafraid  and  unabashed.   The 


12  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

big  boy  is  not  big  enough  to  be  of  any  use  as  a 
protector,  but  he  looks  well  in  the  party.  The 
real  protector  is  the  o.  m.,  who,  like  all  her  kind, 
is  afraid  of  nothing  that  walks  or  crawls,  and 
who  is  calm  and  masterful  even  in  the  presence 
of  that  bugbear  to  all  proper  womankind — a 
time-table.  She  can  even  understand  it,  and 
without  asking  questions  know  when  to  get  back 
to  the  train.  From  tender  years  she  has  gone 
alone.  Her  independence  is  now  natural  and 
unobtrusive. 

Now,  Mother  and  I  have  always  claimed  that 
Chicago  was  much  maligned;  and  while  we  have 
had  to  admit  that  it  is  dirty  and  sprawly,  and,  if 
you  are  on  the  lee  side  of  the  Yards,  often  smelly, 
yet  we  warm  with  enthusiasm  over  the  grassy  aisles 
of  our  stately  boulevards,  and  the  ample  stretches 
of  our  splendid  parks,  and  We  know  from  many 
past  summerings  that  the  suburbs  and  the  country 
round  have  attractions  innumerable.  So  we  are 
childishly  happy  to  think  that  we  have  the  whole 
long  summer  with  nothing  to  do  but  enjoy 
Chicago. 

.  At  this  point  you,  the  gentle  reader,  smile;  but 
it  is  a  humorous,  friendly,  indulgent  smile,  and 
does  not  hurt  at  all.  So  you  may  come  with  us 
on  our  outings ! 


'  Winter  is  over,  spring  has  begun. 


GLENCOE 

THERE  is  a  special  calendar  for  the  child- 
garden.     Its  year  begins  in  September,  so 
that  by  April  the  season  is  far  advanced. 
Eight    months    of    sowing    and     weeding    have 
brought  too  scanty  a  harvest.     Dullness  stares  in 
at  the  window,  and  Weariness  lurks  behind  the 
door.     Which   is  all   contrary  to    nature,  whose 
time  of  beginnings  is  April. 

So  it  happens  that  if  you  have  a  child-garden 
and  some  tired  morning  a  tot  reaches  up  to  you 
a  bunch  of  pink-gray  catkins  on  shiny  brown 
stems,  your  discouraged  heart  gives  a  bound  of 
joy.  Pussy  willows ! 

The  long  winter  is  over.     Spring  has    begun. 
To  your  nostrils  comes  a  whiff  of  bursting  bud- 
scales  and  fresh-scattering  pollen;   to  your  eyes 
a  glimpse  of  brown  leaf  mould  dotted  with  the 
15 


1 6  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

downy  gray  buds  of  pink  and  white  hepaticas; 
to  your  feet  the  soft  touch  of  springy  sun-warmed 
soil.  Next  Saturday — the  very  next  Saturday — 
for  then  the  children  are  free,  you  will  go  for 
your  Easter  hepaticas.  Weariness  has  vanished, 
and  when  the  garden  door  closes,  you  hasten 
home  to  tell  the  glad  news. 

I  hasten  to  tell  it  to  Mother;  but  she  knows 
already.  Everybody  knows !  The  boys  are  play- 
ing marbles  in  the  street.  The  girls  are  jumping 
rope  on  the  walk.  Mother  has  heard  the  robin's 
song.  The  big  little  girl  has  caught  the  crocuses 
peeping  through  the  grass. 

It  is  so  marvelous  and  so  sudden,  this  wonderful, 
ever-new  miracle  of  the  opening  spring !  Yes- 
terday it  was  cold,  bleak  winter.  Today  the  sun 
shines  warm,  the  wind  is  balmy.  Presently  it 
rains  softly.  It  thunders  a  little.  Buds  swell 
and  burst.  Every  green  thing  answers  to  the  call. 
We  too  hear  and  answer,  and  Saturday  we  go 
to  the  North  Shore,  to  one  of  the  ravines  that  all 
the  way  from  Winnetka  to  Lake  Forest  seam  the 
bluffs  and  make  the  suburbs  beautiful. 

Somehow  we  like  Glencoe  best.  Up  the  trolley 
track  from  the  station,  we  turn  in  at  a  gap  in  the 
fence  and  eagerly  make  for  a  spot  where  the 
fresher  green  marks  the  beginning  of  a  depression 


GLENCOE 


that  we  know  will  deepen  and  widen  as  it  leads 
us  deviously  down  and  toward  the  shore. 

At  its  head  we  bid  the  busy  world  good-bye. 
The  first  spring  frogs  sound  their  cheery  greeting 
from    a    pool    in 
the  darker  water     ?vfe  •[• 
grass,  and  a  single 
sunlit    clump    of 
pussy  willows 
smiles    upon    us, 
their  stamens 
grown    long    and     tM 
yellow,  scattering 
pollen  to  the  wind 
and  over  the  backs 
of  the  bees   that 
their     abounding 
sweetness  has 
lured  from  winter 
quarters. 

Down  the  gully  we  go,  and  gaily  climbing  our 
first  fence,  we  enter  a  gentle,  grassy  glade,  where 
the  baby  stream  runs  clear  and  shimmering 
between  smooth  green  banks  in  a  smooth  green 
meadow  streaked  with  the  long  shadows  of  the 
tree  trunks  and  the  delicate  tracery  of  bare 
branches,  all  so  dainty  that  one  of  us  uncon- 


i8 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


sciously  begins  to  hum  "I  know  a  bank  whereon 
the  wild  thyme  grows,"  and  laughingly  we  fall  to 
arranging  exits  and  entrances  for  Oberon  and 
Titania  and  their  fairy  train.  And  all  the  small 
mishaps  of  the  day  are  laid  to  mischievous  Puck. 


Reluctantly  we  turn  our  backs  to  this  quiet 
scene,  and  set  our  faces  toward  the  wilder  beauty 
of  the  deepening  ravine  ahead. 

It  is  so  steep  now  that  to  find  secure  footing  we 


GLEN  CO  E  21 

must  cross  and  recross  the  winding  streamlet, 
stepping  from  one  to  another  of  the  bowlders  that 
lie  thick  in  the  bottom,  or  balancing  on  an  inse- 
cure log,  or  sometimes  jumping  and  dextrously 
pulling  ourselves  up  by  the  tough  bushes.  When 
we  miss  our  jump,  or  a  stone  turns,  we  slip  in  the 
wet  clay;  but  we  are  dressed  to  meet  all  emergen- 
cies and  we  are  extricated  with  both  our  feelings 
and  our  skins  unhurt. 

The  big  boy  is  in  his  element,  leaping  back  and 
forth,  making  side  excursions  of  discovery  up  the 
steep  tributary  rills,  beating  his  way  through  the 
bare  hazel  and  sumach  thickets  and  now  and 
then  shinning  up  a  tree,  just  because  he  can,  and 
because  nothing  else  will  make  quite  so  clear  his 
masculine  superiority. 

Occasionally  a  fence  crosses  the  ravine.  Nota- 
ble fences  they  are,  desperate  combinations  of 
posts  and  boards  with  brush  and  barbed  wire, 
but  wholly  unavailing ;  for  any  one  hardy  enough 
to  brave  the  hazards  of  the  ravine  bottom  could 
never  be  stopped  by  a  fence.  We  go  under  or 
over  or  through,  according  to  our  agility  and  our 
stature.  Moreover,  why  should  we  be  stopped, 
the  o.  m.  would  like  to  know?  Ability  to  enjoy 
ought  to  count  for  as  much  as  a  fee-simple  in 
giving  title  to  a  landscape.  One  never  meets 


22  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

any  of  the  natives  in  the  ravine  bottoms.  In 
April  they  are  still  wintering  in  the  city,  and 
when  they  do  come  they  will  stay  on  top,  on 
their  verandas  and  lawns.  If  it  is  only  city 
tramps  that  care  for  the  ravines,  why  impede  us? 

Wherever  there  is  a  level  spot  we  sit  to  rest  and 
to  listen  to  the  silence.  Bird  notes  alone  break 
the  stillness;  a  lilting  chorus  of  yellow  warblers, 
the  joyous  spring  whistle  of  the  blue  jay  or  the 
hammer  of  a  wood-pecker  saying  that  life  is  astir 
under  the  bark.  There  is  life  astir  in  the  ground 
as  well.  When  the  big  boy  in  sheer  joy  of  living 
kicks  up  the  earth,  multitudes  of  wee  six  and 
eight-footed  folk  run  distractedly  hither  and 
thither. 

The  ravine  is  very  steep  now  and  brown  with 
a  thick  covering  of  dead  leaves.  Only  the 
patches  of  velvety  green  moss  tell  that  it  is  not 
winter  still;  for  the  trees  have  not  yet  declared 
themselves,  save  some  of  the  willows  and  an 
occasional  low  red  maple,  whose  glowing  ruby 
blossoms  make  the  air  about  them  redolent. 

The  sun  is  riding  high  and  sending  his  rays 
down  into  the  sheltered  ravines  with  nearly  his 
summer  ardor.  The  clatter  of  hoofs  and  wheels 
on  a  bridge  sounds  almost  over  our  heads,  and 
we  know  we  are  near  the  Sheridan  Road. 


GLENCOE  23 

On  the  ravine's  southward  slope  the  delicate 
wood  anemones,  in  twos  and  threes,  have  been 
nodding  and  smiling  across  to  the  northward 
slope,  and  we  have  been  guessing  that  the  sturdy 
hepaticas  were  there;  and  now,  all  at  once,  we 
come  upon  them,  surrounded  by  their  own  last 
season's  leaves,  that  a  few  days  ago  would  have 
seemed  as  lifeless  as  the  tawny  carpet  about 
them.  To  the  very  end  of  the  ravine  now  we 
shall  rejoice  in  hepaticas. 

We  shout  for  joy  as  we  look  upward.  Un- 
countable numbers  of  hepaticas  are  there,  pink 
and  white  and  lavender,  millions  of  starry  flowers 
and  downy  silvery  stems  and  buds.  Here  and 
there  glow  patches  of  crimson  and  bronze  where 
the  sun  strikes  through  the  leaves,  revived  by  the 
stirring  sap  to  give  up  what  nourishment  is  in 
them  that  the  brave  blossoms  may  unfold. 

Just  beyond  the  bridge,  on  which  the  big  boy 
stands  and  laughs  down  at  us  from  among  the 
tree  tops,  a  grassy  clearing  rises  high  from  the 
stream  bank  where  violet  leaves  already  form 
thick  mats  over  the  moist  earth  and  May-apples 
are  pushing  up  their  funny  tipless  green  umbrellas. 
Later  in  the  season  we  picnic  on  the  stone  pile 
on  the  beach,  but  in  April  this  sunny  sheltered 
spot  by  the  bridge  is  better.  We  idle  long  in  the 


24  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

still  sunshine,  watching  the  gay  flickers  brighten- 
ing the  branches  of  the  bare  trees,  and  then  take 
up  our  march. 

All  at  once  a  cold  breath  of  wind  strikes  us  and 
in  a  moment  we  are  out  on  the  sand  beach  at  the 


base  of  a  high  clay  bluff,  with  the  cold  gray 
waves  breaking  in  a  surf  at  our  feet. 

We  must  run  to  keep  warm,  or  play  our  favorite, 
time-honored  game  of  "duck  on  the  rock." 


••y-, ••'         .  ..;  N    W 


GLEN  CO  E  27 

To  the  north  loom  the  black  chimneys  of 
Waukegan,  the  first  reminder  since  we  entered  the 
ravine  that  we  are  still  in  the  busy  world.  In  this 
direction  the  beach  becomes  narrow  and  rocky 
and  impassable,  and  the  bluff  rises  sheer  and  bare 
a  hundred  feet.  To  the  south  the  sandy  beach 
grows  wider  and  the  prospect  is  less  forbidding, 
so  we  all  go  to  look  at  the  great  glacier-scored 
bowlder  that  is  sliding  out  of  the  bluff  on  its  way 
to  the  water. 

As  the  cold  wind  conquers  us  one  by  one,  we 
retreat  from  the  wintry  beach  to  the  spring-time 
warmth  of  the  ravine,  and  here  we  lie  in  the  warm 
sun  and  dig  hepaticas  to  take  to  our  little  wild 
garden. 

With  baskets  overflowing,  and  wonderful  arm- 
fuls  of  soft  gray  willow  and  brown  hazel,  bright- 
ened by  the  glowing  red  of  the  maple  flowers,  we 
climb  up  into  Sheridan  Road  and  take  the  path 
through  the  woods  to  the  station.  It  will  take  us 
but  a  few  minutes  to  go  back,  although  we  were 
hours  coming  down  the  ravine.  We  emerge 
from  the  woods  close  to  our  golden  willow  clump 
of  the  morning. 

If  we  have  been  as  slow  as  we  should  be,  the 
sun  will  be  sinking  red  behind  the  woods  of 
Wilmette  as  we  come  through.  It  will  be  dusk  as 


28  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

we  cross  the  bridge  in  the  city,  and  we  shall  see 
the  warehouses  fading  dull  gray  into  a  pearly 
sky  above  the  dark  gray  water.  Only  the  white 
breasts  and  wings  of  the  swooping  gulls  give 
relief  to  the  soft  gray  picture. 

If  you  see  it,  you  will  love  the  city  too;  and 
the  spirit  of  Pan  will  be  with  you,  when  the  big 
little  girl  has  had  her  good-night  kiss,  and  the  big 
boy  is  sleeping  the  sleep  of  tired  youth,  and  you 
and  Mother  are  arranging  your  roots  for  tomor- 
row's early  planting  and  speaking  softly  of  two 
little  blue-eyed  girls  that  searched  the  woods  for 
the  blue  hepaticas  in  the  early  spring-time  a  whole 
generation  ago. 


" Under  fresh  green  willows." 


RIVER  FOREST 

FOR  a  month  we  have  to  live  on  the 
memory  of  the  hepaticas  in  the  ravines 
aided  by  the  hepaticas  in  pots  and  in  the 
garden;  for  April  weather  is  freaky,  and  by 
some  perversity  of  fate  the  warm,  sunny  days 
have  come  in  the  middle  of  the  week,  and  the 
Saturdays  and  Sundays  have  been  raw  and 
wet.  Not  that  we  always  demand  sunshine. 
Gray  days  we  love  as  well;  but  no  petticoated 
person  can  start  for  the  woods  in  a  cold  drizzling 
rain. 

At  last  a  Saturday  comes  clear  enough  and 
bright  enough  for  an  outing,  and  it  is  high  time 
to  pay  our  first  spring  visit  to  the  Desplaines 
river. 

The  Desplaines  is  long  and  interesting  and  we 
31 


32  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

know  it  all  the  way,  in  spots,  from  the  fine  farms 
of  Wheeling  southward  to  Summit,  whence,  nearly 
lost  in  the  broad  Outlet  valley,  it  whimpers  along 
past  Joliet,  to  find  itself  again,  in  the  Illinois, 
merged  with  the  waters  of  the  Kankakee.  And 
all  the  way,  in  spots,  it  gives  charm  and  variety 
to  what  would  otherwise  be  a  hopelessly  monot- 
onous region. 

We  are  greatly  embarrassed  on  the  Desplaines 
because  the  river  has  two  banks,  and  from  either 
bank  we  espy  greater  attractions  on  the  other. 
But  at  River  Forest  the  big  boy  knows  where 
canoes  are  to  be  had.  One  will  not  hold  us  all, 
but  one  is  very  useful  as  a  ferry  and  to  maintain 
connection  between  the  factions  of  our  divided 
house,  for  we  generally  fail  to  agree  as  to  which 
bank  to  follow. 

Sometimes  we  have  several  canoes,  and  then 
we  paddle  miles  up  the  river,  past  green  open 
meadows  and  upland  farms  on  the  one  side,  and 
splendid  natural  woods  on  the  other.  Sometimes 
there  are  woods  on  both  sides  and  the  curves  of 
the  river  shut  us  in  before  and  behind.  Pro- 
tected from  the  wind,  the  placid  stream  makes  a 
perfect  mirror,  and  trees  and  flowers  and  sky 
encompass  us  above  and  below,  as  we  paddle 
on  to  the  unknown  regions  beyond  the  bend. 


RIVER  FOREST  33 

In  a  green  breezy  meadow,  under  fresh  green 
willows,  where  the  water  riffles  and  shimmers  in 
the  sun,  we  have  our  lunch,  and  loiter  about 
while  the  big  boy  fishes  and  catches  nothing. 

We  have  not  been  alone  on  the  river.  An  occa- 
sional canoe  has  floated  by  us,  and  we  have  passed 
silent  fishermen,  sitting  on  the  bank  singly  or  in 
little  groups.  And  one  of  them  caught  a  fish, 
for  we  saw  it  frying  over  a  fire  made  of  dry  brush. 

Of  all  our  country  haunts  this  is  the  most  fre- 
quented. All  sorts  and  conditions  meet  on  the 
Desplaines.  Automobilists  picking  boughs  of 
the  crab-apples  that  are  just  coming  into  blossom 
close  to  the  road;  bicyclers  trundling  their  wheels 
through  the  woods;  young  mechanics  and  shop 
girls  strolling  arm  in  arm  along  the  path;  artists 
sketching  at  a  bend  in  the  river;  nursemaids 
wheeling  babies  in  go-carts,  to  the  joy  of  the  big 
little  girl;  schoolboys  playing  ball  in  a  clearing, 
to  the  envy  of  the  big  boy,  and,  most  wonderful 
of  all,  some  of  the  residents  themselves ! 

The  dwellers  along  the  river  do  not  regard 
visitors  from  the  city  with  favor.  It  is  only 
Mother  who  can  get  what  she  wants.  The  rest 
of  us  are  turned  back,  and  even  refused  water  to 
drink.  The  o.  m.,  stern  and  commanding,  is 
utterly  helpless,  but  when  Mother  asks,  the  most 


34  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

hardened  householder  lets  us  go  through  his  lot 
"this  time,"  even  while  he  pounds  with  peculiar 
emphasis  on  the  staples  with  which  he  is  fasten- 
ing up  the  new  barbed  wire. 

Visitors  stand  in  their  minds  for  wanton  mis- 
chief. They  break  the  trees  and  dig  up  things, 
thoughtlessly,  I  am  sure,  but  none  the  less  irre- 
parably. Oh!  the  pity  of  it,  that  state  or  city 
does  not  quickly  buy  these  woods  and  protect 
them  for  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  people  all  the 
time.  Private  ownership  of  a  river  bank  seems 
so  preposterous! 

You  may  go  a  long  way  up  the  river.  It  will 
be  much  quicker  coming  back.  But  you  must 
always  save  an  hour  or  two  of  the  late  afternoon 
to  walk  down  the  river  path  from  Thatcher's  Park 
to  River  Forest,  while  the  big  boy  is  left  to  enjoy 
himself  with  the  canoes.  As  soon  as  you  have 
passed  the  village  you  come  into  the  sweet,  open 
spring  woods.  The  fresh  tender  green  of  the 
young  leaves,  the  clear  light  blue  of  the  carpeting 
phlox,  the  patches  of  blue-and-white  innocence, 
the  violets  and  buttercups,  make  beautiful  color 
pictures  on  every  hand. 

The  big  little  girl  sets  out  to  look  for  a  Jack- 
in-the-pulpit,  and  soon  finds  him,  two  of  him, 
preaching  to  one  another,  just  as  they  used  to 


' Preaching  to  one  another" 


RIVER  FOREST  37 

preach  in  our  childhood  story-paper  long  years 
ago.  Spotted  adder-tongue  she  finds  too,  and  red 
trillium  and  bird-foot  violets. 

Beyond  the  young  woods  lies  the  crowning  at- 
traction of  River  Forest,  the  big  woods,  and 
presently  we  come  to  them,  the  finest  in  all  the 
country  round;  untouched,  first-growth  timber, 
preserved  by  the  dear  nature-lover  who  has  long 
owned  the  land.  Here  are  elms  no  two  of  us  can 
span,  high  and  flourishing  as  any  in  New  England ; 
tall  hickorys,  with  their  swollen  buds  just  waking 
up  and  pushing  back  the  covers  that  have  kept 
them  snug  and  warm  through  the  long  winter;  and 
huge  gnarled  oaks,  trees  that  were  never  young, 
their  sluggish  blood  still  unstirred  by  the  return- 
ing sun.  They  are  old  and  wise  and  they  sleep 
until  all  the  spring  chills  and  storms  are  over. 
But  they  do  not  see  the  young  green  shoots,  or 
the  white  hawthorns  like  great  bridal  bouquets,  or 
the  pink  crab-apples  that  make  the  woods  so 
dainty  today.  They  do  not  feel  the  gentle  touch 
of  the  blue  phlox  and  the  violets  and  the  butter- 
cups against  their  hard  dark  boles,  or  the  caress- 
ing of  the  sunbeams  that  filter  through  the  tree 
tops.  The  oaks  are  old  and  wise  and  they  will 
outlive  all  the  rest.  But  how  much  of  life  they 
are  missing!  Almost  as  much  as  if  they  were 


38  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

men  and  women  of  the  city,  too  sluggish  to  "come 
forth  into  the  light  of  things." 

As  we  walk  down  the  path  through  the  thick 
woods  by  the  river,  the  low  sun  bursts  through  a 
cloudbank  to  fleck  the  foliage  and  the  ground 
everywhere  with  goldi  Everybody  is  picking 
flowers  to  carry  home.  The  men  all  take  the 
phlox,  high,  bright  and  showy,  and  crowd  it  out 
of  all  beauty  into  tight  bunches.  The  women 
pick  the  low,  dark  woods-violets.  All  woman- 
kind loves  them  best. 

How  the  springtime  makes  children  of  us  all ! 

On  the  edge  of  the  deep  woods  near  the  town, 
'  in  a  broad  green  clearing,  rings  of  youths  and 
maidens  are  playing  some  old-time  game ;  and  we, 
looking  from  afar,  and  hearing  their  cheery 
voices,  think  of  the  May-day  games  of  Merry 
England.  But  as  we  pass  close,  there  is  wafted 
over  us  a  very  breath  of  our  own  childhood,  the 
delicious  melody  (do  you  know  it?): 

"I  won't  accept  your  silken  gown, 
Though  every  thread  shall  cost  a  pound. 
Madam  won't  walk  with  you,  you,  you; 
No !    Madam  won't  walk  with  you !" 

Alas!  such  fine  scorn  of  worldly  wealth  belongs 
only  to  children  and  the  very  old.  Through  the 
middle  years  our  vision  is  oblique. 


RIVER  FOREST  39 

The  children's  singing  has  touched  a  chord  in 
our  hearts.  Settled  in  the  train,  while  the  big 
little  girl  is  retying  her  violets  with  the  strings 
that  the  big  boy  can  always  produce  from  some- 
where, Mother  sits  beside  me,  making  her  sign  of 
perfect  happiness  and  content.  She  is  singing, 
so  softly  that  I  wonder  whether  I  really  do  hear 
it,  running  old  bits  of  songs  together  with  im- 
provised melodies,  very  sweetly  and  quite  un- 
consciously. One  strain  comes  in  again  and 
again — and  all  at  once  I  recognize  some  bars  of 
a  song  that  I  remember  as  far  back  as  memory 
goes,  and  when  it  comes  again  I  join  her  with  all  I 
remember  of  the  words ;  perhaps  they  are  not  right : 

"  'Twas  down  by  the  river,  where  violets  were 

blooming, 
And  the  springtime  was  ever  fresh  and  green." 


"  The  sweet,  open  spring  woods" 


._. 


THORNTON 

WHEN  the  mercury  reaches  for  the  ninety 
mark  it  is   time   to   stay  at  home;    but 
when  it  is  climbing  up  into  the  eighties 
and  the  crickets  and  the  official  forecaster  agree 
that  it  is  to  be   "fair  and  continued  warm,"  a 
picnic  day  in  the  country  seems  an  inviting  pros- 
pect, and  we  are  likely  to  turn  toward  the  creek 
and  the  woods  at  Thornton. 

It  is  a  sleepy  little  country  town,  where,  in 
early  June,  the  honey-locusts  hang  their  great' 
white  clusters  over  the  walks  and  roads  and  fairly 
drip  fragrance,  while  the  bees  drone  over  them  in 
the  sunny  hours,  or  the  white  moths  flutter  silently 
in  the  twilight  with  the  flashing  fire-flies  to  light 
them. 

Browsing  beneath  the  locust  trees  are  cows  that 
mildly  resent  our  coming,  and  stretched  on  the 
porches  of  the  houses  are  sleepy  dogs  that  rouse 
43 


44  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

and  come  running  down  to  the  gate  to  sniff  and 
bristle  and  bark  until  our  suspicious  company  is 
safely  past,  and  then  with  a  comfortable  air  of 
having  performed  their  whole  duty,  trot  leisurely 
back  to  their  napping,  giving  over  their  responsi- 
bility to  their  canine  neighbors  farther  on. 

The  towns-people  are  still  at  their  morning 
duties,  and  invisible,  but  you  know  there  are 
people  about,  for  you  hear  cheery  out-door  calls 
and  gentle  in-door  murmurs,  and  with  the  human 
voices  are  mingled  the  chirp  of  robins  and  various 
drowsy  barnyard  noises.  As  you  pass  down  the 
road  to  Thorn  creek,  the  rippling  cadence  of  its 
running  water  adds  itself  to  the  village  sounds. 

We  cross  the  bridge  and  turn  into  the  creek 
bottom.  Our  feet  are  on  the  soft,  cool  earth, 
and  our  country  day  is  begun ! 

It  is  a  banner  day  for  boys  and  we  always  have 
plenty  of  them  along  when  we  go  to  Thornton. 
We  turn  them  loose  upon  the  hapless  denizens 
of  the  creek  edges,  and  for  a  whole  day,  at  inter- 
vals, as  the  spirit  moves,  they  may  dig  crawfishes 
and  catch  polliwogs  and  poke  mud-turtles  and 
pocket  garter  snakes  and  hunt  horrors  to  their 
hearts'  content.  I  call  them  horrors,  because  in 
a  book  I  must  be  very  feminine.  Really  and 
truly  I  find  them  all  wonderfully  likeable  and 


THORNTON  45 

human  and  interesting;  that  is,  all  but  the 
snakes ! 

When  the  vanguard  of  the  boys  finds  a  swim- 
ming hole  and  shouts  and  lifts  two  fingers,  Mother 
and  I  and  the  big  little  girl  take  to  the  tall  hard- 
wood timber  that  is  one  of  Thornton's  chief 
attractions,  prudently  carrying  the  lunch  baskets 
with  us  to  make  sure  that  the  boys  will  follow  us  up. 

In  the  woods  the  big  little  girl  roams  close  by 
for  flowers,  while  Mother  and  I  have  a  long, 
peaceful,  dreamy  rest.  We  lie  in  the  leaf-shadows, 
gazing  straight  up  through  the  wavering,  swaying 
green  to  the  clear,  steady  blue  above,  listening 
to  the  sweet  country  sounds;  or  we  sit  very  still 
against  a  tree  trunk,  watching  the  glint  of  the 
blue  birds'  wings  as  they  flit  near  us  through 
the  lights  and  shadows,  or  the  gleam  of  a  sun- 
burnished  tanager's  scarlet  breast  among  the 
high  branches. 

The  boys  break  in  upon  our  reverie,  coming 
fresh  and  noisy  and  hungry  to  show  their  prey  and 
to  clamor  for  their  lunch;  and  fed,  they  are  off 
again,  this  time  to  the  stone-quarry  and  the 
crushers. 

On  the  quarry's  brink  they  lie  down  flat  upon 
their  lunches,  and  squirming  to  the  very  edge, 
look  down  into  the  terrifying  abyss  below,  with 


46 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


the  cold  creeps  running  down,  or  rather,  along 
their  backs.  I  know,  because  I  have  done  it. 
If  it  is  still  noon-hour  and  the  workmen  are  gone, 
they  will  descend  the  long  shaky  ladders  into 


the  depths  of  the  quarry  to  frisk  in  the  pond  of 
clear  spring  water,  and  to  look  for  fossils  and 
crystals,  and  the  black  "rock  gum"  that  they 
would  scorn  to  chew  anywhere  else,  but  delight  in 
here.  Perhaps  the  workmen,  when  they  return, 


THORNTON 


49 


will  let  them  loiter  until  the  chugging  drills  have 
made  the  dynamite  holes  and  the  charge  is  in, 
and  then  rush  them  off  to  a  point  of  safety  to 
watch  the  firing  of  the  blast. 


My  dream-morning  makes  me  long  to  be  left 
alone  where  the  quiet  woods  overlook  the  swing- 
ing curves  of  the  creek  in  the  green  meadow 
pasture,  and  I  beg  Mother  to  take  her  big  little 
girl  and  to  go  and  leave  me.  They  wander  off 
into  the  country,  past  the  farmlands  where  bare- 


$0  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

foot  boys  are  working  in  the  fields,  and  meadow- 
larks  are  singing  all  day,  and  they  look  for  nests 
in  the  tangled  bushes  in  the  fence  corners,  just  to 
see,  never  to  disturb,  the  tiny  eggs  or  the  funny 
feathered  mouths  that  occupy  them. 

And  I  lie  in  the  sweet  summer  wind  and  con- 
tinue my  dreaming — about  the  child-gardens  that 
have  made  my  life.  They  have  been  many  and  of 
many  kinds,  and  some  are  indelibly  fixed  in  my 
memory.  Lately  one  from  a  far-past  garden 
asked  to  come  again,  and  as  we  walked  together 
along  the  woods-road  facing  the  sunset  glow, 
there  came  over  his  face  a  radiance  softer  and 
brighter  than  that  of  the  sun,  as  he  sweetly  and 
ardently  told  me  how  he  had  seen  the  Grail  afar 
off  and  must  go  to  find  it.  He  has  gone  now, 
to  carry  his  message  of  light  to  those  that  dwell 
in  darkness  on  the  other  side  of  the  world;  to 
scatter  much  seed  that  one  grain  may  sprout  and 
flourish  to  bear  fruit  in  long  ages  to  come.  It  is 
an  uncertain  and  far-off  hope,  but  if  you  could 
have  seen  Walter's  face  that  day,  you  would  know 
that  it  is  worth  while. 

The  children  of  my  gardens  are  scattered  the 
wide  world  over,  blown  like  the  down  of  my  own 
thistle  field.  There  is  no  continent  that  does 
not  hold  them. 


THORNTON  53 

In  the  cool  of  the  late  afternoon  we  wander 
back  to  the  town  and  linger  under  the  honey- 
locusts  until  train  time. 

As  we  return  we  count  up  the  gain  and  the  loss 
of  the  day.  We  have  gained:  an  escape  from  a 
dusty  west  wind,  a  fine  balmy  night's  sleep,  a 
store  of  bodily  health,  a  panorama  of  sweet  pic- 
tures, a  book  of  loving  memories,  and  best  of  all, 
the  sympathy  and  confidence  and  affection  of 
our  own  big  boy  and  big  little  girl. 

We  have  lost — nothing.  There  is  a  sordid 
morning  paper  unread;  there  is  only  the  simplest 
dinner  of  eggs  and  fruit;  there  is  thick  gray  dust 
on  our  furniture;  there  will  be  an  extra  busy  day 
tomorrow.  But  our  losses  are  of  the  moment, 
temporal;  our  gains  are  for  all  our  life,  perhaps 
eternal. 


"Pictures  she  will  never  repeat" 


THE  LAKE 

WE  seldom  go  on  the  lake,  the  more's  the 
pity,  for  one  of  us  is  not  a  good  sailor,  and 
the  unpleasant  possibilities  deter  us  from 
even  the  one-day  trips  that  so  many  of  our  fellow 
citizens  believe  to  be  the  only  outings  of  any  kind 
that  Chicago  affords.     So  much  may  happen  to 
wind  and  wave  on  Lake  Michigan  in  a  few  hours ! 
Do  we  not  remember  one  soft,  warm  day  of  a 
bygone  summer  when  the  lake  was  without  a 
ripple    and    the    south    wind    gently    breathing? 
When  we  reached  the  Michigan  shore  we  found 
the  waves  beating  in  a  roaring  surf,  and  we  left 
the  inlet  harbor  with  our  ship  cavorting  impishly 
from  wave  to  wave.     We  came  into  Chicago  at 
three  in  the  morning,  six  hours  late,  all  of  us 
hungry  and   tired,   one  deathly  sick.     Now  we 
take  only  half-day  excursions  and  these  must  be 
along  shore  so  that  if  necessary  we  may  return  by 
57 


58  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

rail.     There  are  not  so  many  such  trips.     Our 
friends  tell  us  when  they  hear  of  one. 

One  Saturday  afternoon  we  attached  ourselves 
to  a  certain  woman's  club  and  went  on  their 
cruise  up  the  north  shore. 


It  was  the  hottest  day  of  that  summer  season. 
The  pavements  and  walls  down  town  fairly 
sizzled.  Crowds  of  men  and  boys  hung  over 
the  railings  of  the  bridges  watching  the  vessels 


THE  LAKE  59 

come  and  go.  They  must  have  found  altruistic 
refreshment  in  the  knowledge  that  somewhere 
there  was  relief  from  the  heat,  for  they  could  have 
found  but  little  comfort  from  the  slight  breeze 
that  blew  over  the  river.  On  the  dock  at  the  end 
of  the  bridge  was  a  crowd,  eager  to  embark,  but 
these  were  women  and  children;  women  of  all 
ages  and  conditions,  and  arrayed  in  all  possible 
styles,  from  the  sternly  nautical  to  the  purely 
decorative. 

I  have  never  been  able  to  take  a  large  concourse 
of  women  as  seriously  as  one  of  my  sex  and  calling 
should.  There  is  always  a  ludicrous  incongruity 
about  it,  to  which  men  are  particularly  alive.  Re- 
cently I  have  had  this  feeling  explained  to  my  own 
satisfaction.  It  is  due  to  the  entire  lack  of  that 
uniformity  in  appearance  which  a  gathering  of 
men  presents.  How,  pray,  can  a  high-heeled 
maiden  in  trailing  lace  and  chiffon  and  plumed 
picture  hat  possibly  be  of  one  mind  with  a  matron 
of  the  broad-soled,  short-skirted,  severely  tailor- 
made  variety? 

Interspersed  in  the  crowd  were  a  few  men,  not 
real  men  perhaps,  but  still  men,  prevailed  upon 
by  great  love  or  fear — you  could  generally  tell 
which  by  the  expression  of  the  woman  who  had 
him  along — to  brave  the  feminine  jam. 


60  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

But  now  the  gang  plank  is  out,  and  merrily  the 
crowd  boards  the  ship,  struggling  a  moment  in 
the  breathless  crush  at  the  plank,  and  then  freely 
and  gladsomely  spreading  out  to  occupy  all  points 
of  vantage  on  the  decks — the  more  decorous  in 
the  quiet  shade  of  the  lower  deck,  the  more  ob- 
streperous in  the  open  sunlight  of  the  upper,  now 
scorching  hot,  but  soon  to  be  swept  by  the  cool 
winds  of  the  lake. 

Out  of  the  river  we  steam,  passing  other  craft 
loading  up  with  holiday  pleasure-seekers.  There 
is  the  music  of  bands  and  merry  bantering  calls 
back  and  forth  from  the  decks.  Then  we  pass  the 
government  pier,  where  queer  fishermen  roost  on 
top  the  piles,  and  at  the  crib  turn  northward 
along  the  shore.  And  all  in  a  moment  we  have 
exchanged  the  dusty,  breathless,  baking  heat  for 
the  cool,  clean,  delicious  wind  that  dries  our  sticky 
skins  and  revives  our  drooping  spirits. 

We  watch  the  Lake  Shore  Drive  and  Lincoln 
Park  glide  by  us  and  give  place  to  the  long  line 
of  indistinguishable  green  that  marks  the  land. 
Our  course  now  lies  farther  out,  for  near  shore 
tricky  sand-bars  abound,  and  as  the  green  line 
recedes  we  turn  to  the  seaward  side.  The  sky 
has  lost  its  dusty  glare  and  save  at  the  horizon, 
has  become  clear  and  blue,  and  the  wide  expanse 


THE  LAKE 


61 


of  water  to  the  east  reflects  a  deeper  blue,  un- 
broken save  by  the  long  divergent  lines  of  our 
foaming  wake. 

The   pure,   bracing  air  is   exhilarating.     You 
explore  the  ship;  and  if  you  are  curious  (and  if 


not,  never  hope  to  come  with  us  again),  you  go 
below  to  the  water-level  deck,  where  you  knew 
beforehand  you  would  find  gathered  together  all 
the  idle  men  of  the  crew  and  all  the  boys  who 
were  aboard  without  the  incubus  of  too  careful 


62  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

guardians.  Here,  if  you  have  the  gift  of  invisi- 
bility which  comes  to  those  who  have  learned  to 
stand  very  still  and  gaze  straight  ahead,  you  will 
not  be  a  damper  to  the  talk  even  though  you 
be  feminine.  You  may  look  out  over  the  bound- 
less level  stretch  of  blue  that  tells  not  whether 
you  are  on  salt  seas  or  fresh,  in  pirate  ship  or 
merchant  galleon,  and  hear  many  a  story,  terse, 
picturesque  and  sometimes  profane,  told  to  the 
accompaniment  of  the  water  swashing  at  your 
feet. 

The  wise  who  go  on  lake  excursions  carry  a 
box  of  eatables,  for  the  fare  on  the  steamers  is 
for  the  most  part  execrable.  Then,  too,  the  chil- 
dren get  importunately  hungry  long  before  meal 
time.  Others  than  children  often  feel  like  pangs ; 
and  many  a  time  and  oft  have  our  boxes  been 
opened  almost  as  soon  as  we  were  loose  from  our 
moorings. 

But  this  time  the  club  is  serving  supper,  and 
the  president  has  invited  us  to  her  table.  Won- 
derful president!  I  could  best  describe  her  by 
naming  her  name,  for  she  is  known  wherever  the 
good  and  the  strong  congregate.  Keen,  alert, 
happy,  well-balanced,  with  a  merry  word  and  smile 
at  the  surface,  whatever  vexations  and  responsibil- 
ities may  be  underneath,  she  is  both  a  sunbeam 


THE  LAKE  63 

and  a  rock  of  strength.  The  little  mother  of 
hundreds  of  helpless  children,  her  crown  of  thorns 
has  become  a  crown  of  glory.  The  club,  like 
its  president,  has  a  real  and  practical  purpose, 
and  what  is  more,  carries  out  its  projects;  in 
which  particular  it  is  different  from  most  other 
clubs  that  I  know. 

We  were  joined  at  the  table  by  the  one  man 
who  seemed  to  have  come  neither  from  love  nor 
fear,  but  because  he  liked  it !  He  was  interesting 
to  look  at,  because  he  was  so  different,  and  to 
listen  to,  because  of  a  certain  dry  humor.  Some- 
one whispered  to  me  that  he  was  an  author. 
Later  I  found  this  to  be  true.  He  has  written  a 
cook-book.  Among  other  recipes  it  contains 
one  for  boiling  spinach  without  water.  I  have 
tried  it  and  found  it  excellent. 

As  sunset  time  comes  I  detach  myself  from  the 
company,  for  small  talk  seems  so  out  of  keeping 
when  Nature  is  painting  kaleidoscopic  pictures 
which  she  will  never  repeat.  The  eye  loses  so 
much,  while  the  ear  gains  nothing.  We  were 
off  Fort  Sheridan,  and  as  the  sun  sank  behind 
the  clouds  the  tower  stood  black  and  grim  against 
the  gold  of  the  western  sky.  Above,  the  whole 
canopy  was  wrought  into  cloth  of  gold,  while  be- 
low lay  a  placid  golden  sea.  A  little  sailboat 


64  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

loomed  dark  between  us  and  the  golden  west, 
its  occupants  softly  singing.  A  deep  serenity  and 
a  great  peace  were  upon  me.  I  kept  aloof  for 
a  long  time,  neither  stirring  nor  speaking  nor 
thinking;  giving  myself  up  to  enjoying  the  glo- 
rious spectacle,  even  after  the  gold  had  died  out 
and  the  west  grew  deep  purple.  Magically  the 
water  turned  from  gold  to  precious  fire  opal, 
shimmering  in  wonderful  change  of  color,  yet  al- 
ways true  to  the  purple  of  the  sovereign  sky.  Un- 
til darkness  settled,  this  enchantment  held  me, 
and  then  I  reluctantly  rejoined  my  company. 

Our  day  was  nearly  over.  To  the  southward 
appeared  the  blinking  red  and  white  harbor  lights, 
and  the  Watch-dog's  tower,  rising  like  a  diadem 
amid  the  general  illumination  of  the  city;  and  as 
we  entered  the  river's  mouth,  we  saw  from  the 
prow,  one  of  the  gayest,  and  at  the  same  time,  one 
of  the  most  mysterious  of  the  city's  sights,  the 
river  at  night. 

The  poet  of  the  city  is  yet  to  come,  working 
with  words  or  color.  There  are  signs  that  he  is 
coming,  he  whose  soul  is  to  feel  in  the  rush  and 
turmoil  of  people,  the  piling  of  steel  and  stone, 
the  panting  of  steam,  the  blurring  of  smoke,  the 
din  of  wheels  and  the  flash  of  lights,  the  irresisti- 
ble progress  of  humanity,  and  who  will  speak  a 


THE  LAKE 


language  understood  by  the  new  generations  of 
the  city  born  and  bred,  to  all  but  a  few  of  .whom 
the  old  poetry  of  meadow  and  mountain  and 
forest  and  sea  will  be  unintelligible.  Perhaps 


one  such  is  the  artist-poet  who  sees  in  the  smoke 
of  great  chimneys  "an  offering  as  acceptable  to 
God  as  was  the  frankincense  of  old." 

And  now  there  is  a  general  scurrying  to  and  fro, 
to  collect  baggage  and  families,  and  the  President 


66  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

and  I  are  left  alone.  We  were  children  together, 
she  and  I,  in  one  of  the  city's  big,  square,  red- 
brick schoolhouses,  and  we  are  children  yet,  for 
a  moment,  when  we  meet  and  clasp  hands. 

There  is  the  charm  of  our  childhood's  fairy- 
land in  the  long,  shimmering,  dancing,  writhing 
streaks  of  red  and  green  and  white,  imprisoned 
by  the  black,  deserted  wharves  and  huge  looming 
warehouses. 

It  is  so  mysterious,  so  like  the  goblin  tales  of 
our  childhood,  that  we  feel  again  the  lovely  cold 
shivers  run  up  and  down  our  spines,  and  our 
hearts  beat  high  with  childhood's  memories  as  we 
stand  hand  in  hand  at  the  prow  together,  the 
President  and  I. 


1  The  path  through  the  thick  woods  by  the  river" 


SAG 

THE  way  to  Sag  lies  out  the  "Archey  Road," 
which  is  a  glowing  example  of  the  power  of 
art;   for  Mr.  Dooley  has  hung  over  it  a 
glamor  that  transcends  the  grime  and  the  squalor 
and    makes   a   ride  along   its   slant-wise  course 
become  a  pleasant  reminiscence. 

One  may  go  to  Sag  by  train;  one  should  go  to 
most  places  by  train  if  he  values  good  temper; 
but  to  Sag  let  us  go  by  trolley,  for  the  sake  of 
convenience  and  for  the  sake  of  Dooley,  and  when 
the  outward  view  grows  too  sordid,  let  us  use  the 
inward  eye  to  see  behind  the  doors  of  the  con- 
tracted homes  and  dingy  shops,    the  mother-wit 
and  the  quaint  philosophy  of  the  Emerald  Isle. 
It  is  these  great  slant-wise  streets  that  show 
69 


;o  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

what  "We,  the  people"  really  means.  Ride  along 
their  interminable  length:  Archer  avenue,  Blue 
Island  avenue,  Milwaukee  avenue. 

What  different  visions  does  each  conjure  up ! 

Along  Archer  avenue  the  children,  only  once 
removed  from  the  Auld  Sod,  are  bare-legged,  wiry, 
noisy,  full  of  pranks.  They  will  graduate  into 
policemen  and  then  into  public  officials,  and  rule 
the  city  tomorrow.  On  Blue  Island  avenue  the 
little,  dark,  solemn-eyed  babies  of  refugees  from 
the  dim  countries  of  Europe,  hug  the  protecting 
doorways  of  the  shops — embryo  merchants  of  the 
next  generation.  On  Milwaukee  avenue  the  flaxen 
haired  children  of  the  Emperor,  move  slowly  up 
and  down.  They  are  the  leaven  of  sterling  good 
citizenship  that  will  leaven  the  whole  great  soggy 
lump  in  the  days  to  come. 

But  we  are  on  the  "Archey  Road." 

The  north  end  of  Archer  avenue  has  suffered 
an  invasion  from  Southern  Europe,  and  Italian 
names  are  over  the  doors,  but  farther  on,  toward 
Bridgeport,  the  street  takes  on  its  own  true  char- 
acter. Burke  and  Hogan  take  the  place  of 
Guarini  and  Cantinella.  Blue  eyes  replace  black. 
Carrot-tops  abound. 

Innumerable  short  streets,  up  which  one  may 
get  a  glimpse  in  passing,  empty  into  the  main 


SAG  71 

thoroughfare  and  all  bespeaks  the  Irish  settlement. 
Rows  upon  rows  of  tiny  cottages  line  these  side 
streets,  telling  of  the  ever-present  longing  in  the 
heart  of  the  homeless  Irish  peasant  for  a  bit  of  the 
earth  to  call  his  own;  and  one  ventures  to  say 
that  most  of  the  houses  are  owned,  except  for 
a  mortgage,  maybe,  by  those  who  live  within. 
They  may  struggle  against  hardships  of  many 
sorts,  but  eventually  they  will  win  out,  and  the 
land  will  be  theirs;  and  then,  with  only  the  taxes 
to  pay,  there  will  come  better  days. 

The  trolley  takes  us  across  and  along  number- 
less tracks  and  beside  the  ruins  of  the  "old  red 
bridge"  that  used  to  span  the  black,  scum-cov- 
ered, incredible  slime  of  Bubbly  Creek.  Beyond 
Bridgeport,  the  houses  grow  more  sparse,  and  in 
the  open  ditches  bordered  with  willows  and  silver 
maples  dappling  in  the  wind,  swim  sociable  geese 
that  tell  of  the  growing  feather-beds  within. 
Then  comes  the  country,  level  as  a  floor.  Acres 
and  acres  of  vegetables,  and  fields  tawny  with 
squirrel-grass  or  greening  after  the  mowing,  lie 
smiling  in  the  mid-forenoon  sun,  as  the  hot  earth 
gives  its  odor  to  the  west  wind — for  one  must 
go  to  Sag  on  a  west-wind  day. 

We  pass  through  the  hamlets  of  Summit  and 
Willow  Springs  and  along  the  attractive  heights 


72  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

of  Mount  Forest,  and  view  on  the  right  the  gray, 
weather-scored  flanks  and  bare,  rocky  peaks  of 
the  "Drainage  Mountains";  those  two  long 
parallel  ranges  of  debris  that  stand  as  witnesses 
to  the  upheavals  of  the  nineties,  when  these  quiet 
villages  shook  with  the  dynamite  earthquakes 
that  were  to  open  anew  the  ancient  waterway  be- 
tween the  Lakes  and  the  Gulf,  and  as  in  defiance 
of  the  Great  Engineer,  re-establish  the  flow  as 
it  was  when  the  straits  to  the  north  lay  ice- 
dammed. 

We  alight  at  Sag.  The  noise  of  the  disap- 
pearing trolley  gives  place  to  the  songs  of  birds 
and  rustle  of  leaves  as  we  climb  the  steep  hill 
path  over  mossy  stones  and  beneath  cool  shadows. 
Reaching  the  top,  we  pass  through  the  quiet 
garden  of  the  parish  house  into  the  churchyard, 
and  as  we  turn  to  shut  the  gate,  our  surprised  eyes 
rest  upon  a  shrine  built  against  a  tree  trunk. 

There  is  a  snow-white  figure  of  a  saint,  and  on 
the  little  shelf  below  are  bowls  of  fresh  flowers 
placed  there  no  doubt  by  the  sweet-faced  nuns 
whom  we  presently  meet  in  the  peaceful  paths 
of  the  little  churchyard.  There  the  flowers  and 
vines  grow  untrained  over  the  graves  and  head- 
stones. The  wooden  crosses  of  the  humble  and 
the  stone  memorials  of  the  well-to-do  show  whence 


"Across  the  west  fork  of  the  great  valley." 


SAG  75 

and  when  Sag's  first  inhabitants  came.  The 
names  are  all  true  Irish,  and  the  dates  go  back 
to  1849,  a  great  antiquity  to  a  Chicagoan. 

Beyond  the  churchyard  is  a  rolling  upland 
pasture,  backed  by  woods  now  in  their  mid- 
summer green.  On  the 
edge  of  the  wood  is  a 
wild  crab-apple  tree, 
and  you  may  rest  there 
from  the  heat  of  the 
sun  and  see  in  imagina- 
tion what  we  have  often 
seen  in  reality,  this  pas- 
ture and  wood  lot  in  the 
springtime,  the  crab- 
apple  tree  a  glory  of 
coral  buds  and  delicate 
pink  blossoms,  their 
deeper  color  accenting 
the  pink  of  the  young 
oak  shoots,  and  itself  accented  by  the  flash  of 
a  scarlet  tanager,  the  whole  making  a  lacery  of 
tender  pink  and  green  through  which  one  might 
look  across  the  broad  valley  to  another  just  such 
screen  made  purple  by  the  distance. 

Once  there  was  another  big  boy,  and  one  day 
as  we  sat  under  the  crab-apple  tree,  he  came  to 


76 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


us  across  the  upland,  bareheaded,  his  coat  open 
to  the  wind.  The  noon-day  sun  fell  full  upon 
him,  making  him  so  bright  and  beautiful  that  he 
seemed  a  very  part  of  the  springtime.  He  called 
out  to  us  as  he  came  and  the  distance  sent  us 


his  voice  in  a  clear  spring  song.  A  month  later 
we  gave  him  back  to  his  mother  earth.  Sag  is 
doubly  dear  since  then. 

Two  great  valleys  meet  at  Sag  and  where  they 
join  is  the  high  point  of  land  on  which  the  church 
stands  and  from  which  the  view  stretches  far 


SAG  77 

away,  across  and  along  both.  Great  valleys  they 
are,  bearing  witness  to  the  immense  streams  of 
icy  water  that  once  rushed  past  to  warm  itself 
in  the  southern  gulf.  Now  there  is  but  the  little 
Desplaines  in  the  one,  and  the  tiny  Feeder  in  the 
other. 

Wander  back  into  the  woods  and  you  will  find 
rolling  pasture  land,  a  small  pond  where  the 
cattle  find  refreshment,  and  steepsided  pictur- 
esque ravines  where  little  brooks  run  down  to 
the  great  valley. 

Here,  far  from  prying  eyes,  you  may  sit  on  a 
bowlder  and  deliciously  dabble  your  hands  and 
your  feet  in  the  cool  water,  while  those  of  the 
swimming  sex  escape  to  one  of  the  old  quarry 
holes  a  mile  away  in  the  valley  bottom. 

Two  articles  of  raiment  I  hate  with  a  most  un- 
Christian  hatred.  They  are  hats  and  shoes.  A 
hat  I  can  never  regard  as  anything  but  an  un- 
pleasant joke,  and  I  am  revelling  in  the  fad 
that  now  permits  a  woman  to  go  about  with- 
out millinery  and  not  be  accounted  insane.  May 
it  prove  more  than  a  fad!  Shoes  I  regard  as  an 
atrocity — impervious  boxes,  shaped  without  refer- 
ence to  that  which  they  are  to  contain.  From 
them,  alas,  there  seems  to  be  only  the  present 
temporary  escape. 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


Swimming  makes  one  hungrier  than  dabbling; 
so  stop  in  good  time,  and  going  back  to  the  edge 
of  the  wood,  where  is  the  great  sweeping  view,  have 
the  lunch  ready  to  spread  at  sight  of  the  returning 
swimmers. 

The  town  of  Sag  has  fallen  into  decrepitude. 

If  you  have  an 
old  time-table  you 
will  find  on  it  Sag 
Bridge,  and  the 
change  in  name 
gives  a  clew  to  the 
decadence  of  the 
town.  Once  upon 
a  time,  before  the 
Drainage  upheaval, 
there  was  a  bridge 
here  across  the  his- 
toric Illinois  and 
Michigan  canal  and  the  Desplaines  river,  and  an 
important  road  across  the  valley.  But  every  great 
improvement  brings  its  small  catastrophes.  The 
bridge  is  gone  and  the  glory  of  Sag  has  departed. 
The  big  boy  went  scouting  to  see  if  in  any  way 
we  might  get  sight  of  the  drainage  canal,  and 
returned  triumphant,  but  a  most  curious  spectacle. 
For  he  was  covered  from  collar  to  shoes  with  a 


SAG  79 

mat  of  flat  green  burs.  He  had  found  a  way  for 
us;  not  through  the  burs,  he  hastened  to  explain. 
We  sat  a  while  to  let  the  big  boy  rest,  while  we  all 
fell  upon  him,  picking  burs  off  one  by  one,  a 
process  not  completed  until  two  days  later.  Then 
we  followed  our  guide  along  a  little  path  between 
tangles  of  weeds  head-high,  to  where  he  had 
discovered  a  flat  boat,  in  which  we  crossed  the 


inky,  evil-smelling  Styx  of  the  Illinois  and  Mich- 
igan canal  to  the  wondering  owner  who  dwelt 
on  the  farther  side.  A  few  words  and  a  coin 
satisfied  him,  and  the  alert  among  us  proceeded 
to  climb  the  insecure  slope  of  the  South  Drainage 
Range,  from  whose  summit  we  surveyed  the 
country  round.  Descending  on  the  other  side 
we  found  ourselves  on  the  edge  of  the  rock- walled 


8o 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


Sanitary  canal,  whose  clear,  swift-flowing  current 
will  soon  rout  the  deadly  typhoid  of  our  great 
city. 

We  retrace  our  way  to  the  foot  of  the  church 
hill,  and  there  turn  across  the  west  fork  of  the 


i  •,, 


great  valley.  Here  deserted  quarries,  decaying 
derricks  and  idle  slips  tell  of  the  departed  industry. 
The  little  houses  are  still  inhabited  by  barefoot 
foreign  women  with  shawls  pinned  over  their 
heads  and  numerous  unkempt  little  ones  huddling 


SAG  83 

about  them.     Geese  paddle  serenely  in  the  quarry 
holes  and  in  the  creek. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  valley  we  ascend, 
quaff  deeply  of  the  fine  artesian  water,  turn 
to  note  the  picturesque  view  and  to  bid  fare- 
well to  the  church's  heaven-pointing  spire,  and 
then  turn  westward  along  the  road  that  leads 
over  the  upland.  Presently  we  climb  over  a 
fence,  stop  to  laugh  at  a  nest  of  young  wood- 
peckers deep  in  a  hollowed  stump,  and  pass  along 
the  edge  of  a  delicious  field  of  red  clover  in  per- 
fection of  bloom  to  the  head  of  one  of  the  ravines 
that  everywhere  cut  the  sides  of  the  great  valleys. 

Birds  of  many  kinds  seek  nestings  in  these 
quiet  places,  and  in  the  late  afternoon,  with  the 
shadows  falling  long,  flecking  the  bowlders  lying 
thick  in  the  streamlet,  we  lovingly  and  quietly 
follow  it  to  its  outlet  into  the  great  valley. 

When  some  one  from  the  effete  East  tells  you 
that  Chicago  is  uninteresting  because  it  has  no 
history  and  no  scenery,  take  him  to  Sag;  set  him 
on  the  edge  of  the  pasture  back  of  the  church- 
yard; show  him  the  quarries  of  limestone — age- 
long accumulations  of  tiny  wornout  bodies ;  tell  him 
the  story  of  the  great  glaciers  and  the  icy  rivers  that 
once  flowed  here ;  show  him  the  long,  placid,  mir- 
rored vistas  of  the  old  canal  where  once  pioneers 


84  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

came  thronging  from  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  to 
try  their  fortunes  in  the  new  commercial  village  of 
Chicago;  show  him  the  prophetic  new  Drainage 
canal,  soon  to  assure  us  pure  water  and  later  to 
make  a  triumphant  waterway  to  the  Gulf.  Let 
him  look  across  the  miles  of  smiling  bottom-lands 


to  the  purple  bluffs  beyond.  Let  him  walk  over 
the  rolling  uplands  and  down  the  sweet  cool 
ravines.  Show  him  the  flower-grown  church- 
yard and  the  shrine  and  the  long,  narrow,  shaded 
stairway  by  which  the  worshipers  descend  to 
the  road.  Show  him  the  Feeder,  splattering  over 
its  rocky  bed,  and  the  cottages,  half-hidden  by 
willow  clumps,  half-lost  in  their  own  shadows, 
touched  with  the  glory  of  the  sunset  clouds. 
Long  ago  one  from  my  child-garden  stood  with 


SAG  85 

me  in  the  churchyard  and  exclaimed  reverently, 
"Oh,  Miss  Emily!  I  think  that  Sag  is  just  like 
heaven."  To  her  it  was;  to  me  it  was  not;  but 
to  both  of  us  it  is  very  sweet  and  beautiful. 


PALOS  PARK 

NOW  and  then  after  we  have  had  a  day 
of  especially  keen  enjoyment,  we  are 
oppressed  by  a  feeling  that  we  are  very 
selfish  to  keep  so  much  pleasure  to  ourselves. 
We  are  bursting  with  a  desire  to  share  our 
joys  with  the  world,  and  so,  heedless  of  former 
experiences,  we  invite  our  neighbors,  one  or 
many,  as  the  spirit  is  weaker  or  stronger  at  the 
time.  It  never  occurs  to  us  that  the  railroads 
and  trolleys  are  common  carriers  and  that  the 
way  to  the  country  is  as  open  to  any  one  else  as 
to  ourselves.  We  invite  our  friends,  and  take 
them  under  our  wing. 

There  is  one  of  our  neighbors  who  is  full  of 

fads — one  at  a  time.     Just  now  it  is  golf.     He 

has  invested  heavily  in  golf  sticks  and  golf  clothes 

and  goes  often  to  the  links.     So  he  believes  that 

89 


QO  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

he  likes  the  country;  and  it  follows  as  a  matter 
of  course  that  his  long-suffering  wife  and  Only 
Child  like  the  country  too.  The  Only  Child  is 
a  girl  of  twelve.  To  be  sure,  there  is  another  one 
in  the  family,  a  baby  of  two,  but  she  came  too 
late  to  affect  in  the  least  the  character  of  the  elder, 
who  is  and  always  will  be  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses an  Only  Child. 

They  must  go  with  us  on  our  rambles;  and 
go  they  did,  just  once,  to  their  discomfiture 
and  ours,  and  to  our  everlasting  amusement,  not 
theirs. 

We  knew  the  end  as  soon  as  we  saw  them  at 
our  door  ready  to  join  us,  and  ran  our  eyes  down 
to  their  shoes.  You  can  always  tell  by  the  shoes. 
Theirs  were  neither  old  nor  easy.  The  Only 
Child  was  filmy  and  decorated,  the  mother  was 
starched  and  spotless.  We  groaned  inwardly. 
Our  country  tramps  are  neither  over  stone  pave- 
ments nor  over  golf  sward,  and  clothes  must 
be  old  and  stout  and  brown  and  woodsey. 

This  day  we  had  elected  to  go  to  Palos  Park, 
perhaps  the  favorite  of  all  our  resorts.  It  is  real 
country,  with  high,  rolling  wooded  hills  and  a 
babbly  creek;  real  country,  for  its  beauty  is  still 
unknown  to  the  multitude.  We  had  no  special 
objective  point,  but  meant  merely  to  wander 


PA  LOS  PARK  91 

through  the  woods  and  along  the  less  frequented 
roads  to  the  south  and  west  of  the  village. 

There  was  a  delicious  breeze  blowing  as  we 
tramped  merrily  along,  sucking  the  honey  sweet- 
ness from  the  blossoms  of  the  deep  red  wayside 
clover,  spying  out  the  scarlet  "star  flowers"  as 
we  named  them,  or  noting  the  exquisite  shadings 
of  innumerable  greens  or  the  flash  of  early  red- 
dening sumachs  as  we  marched  over  a  wooded 
hill. 

We  were  just  getting  in  tune  for  the  day  when 
we  heard  a  cry  from  our  friend.  Her  foot  had 
gone  into  a  grass-covered  hole  and  she  had  nearly 
fallen.  We  looked  and  saw  misery  depicted  on 
her  countenance. 

"If  it  is  much  farther,"  she  groaned,  "I  should 
think  they  would  have  a  bus  at  the  station."  We 
glanced  at  one  another  and  understood.  She 
was  expecting  to  be  led  into  a  city  park !  Mother 
looked  helpless.  The  o.  m.  spoke: 

"My  dear  Mrs ,  this  is  it,  all  around 

us.  We  are  already  there." 

Incredulity  was  in  her  eyes.  Scorn  rode  on  the 
brow  of  the  Only  Child.  Both  were  indignant, 
warm  and  weary.  The  clothes  and  the  shoes 
were  getting  in  their  work.  To  take  them  on  and 
on  all  day  would  be  cruelty;  to  go  back  to  the 


92  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

city  was  impossible.  There  was  no  train  for 
hours. 

Our  big  little  girl  was  looking  solemnly  sympa- 
thetic. Our  big  boy  was  covertly  glaring  and  mak- 
ing faces  at  the  Only  Child.  Mother  and  I  sat 
down  by  the  woods  road  and  held  council  apart. 
Our  friend  declined  to  sit  on  "weeds  and  bugs" 
and  the  Only  Child  stood  loyally  by.  Clearly  we 
must  change  our  day's  plans.  We  remembered 
View  Cottage  and  its  hospitable  inhabitant.  It 
was  but  a  little  way  off.  So  we  turned  back  to  the 
road  that  winds  through  the  woods  to  the  west, 
and  presently  were  cordially  ushered  into  the 
cheery  little  sitting  room. 

There  is  no  place  like  it !  View  Cottage  from 
the  outside  is  unattractive  enough,  just  a  box 
with  doors  and  windows  cut  out.  But  on  enter- 
ing, one  fairly  gasps  with  unforeseen  delight, 
for  the  house  stands  on  the  edge  of  a  level- 
topped  moraine  hill  and  you  enter  it  from  flat 
ground.  The  sitting  room  is  on  the  steep  side 
and  you  find  yourself  among  the  treetops 
near  at  hand,  and  above  the  treetops  in  the 
great  bowl-shaped  valley  beneath,  looking  through 
a  spray  of  green  over  a  sea  of  green  to  the  deep 
green  hills  beyond.  The  view  is  beautiful  at  all 
times,  but  in  the  autumn  it  is  glorious.  All  Palos 


'Exquisite  shadings  of  innumerable  greens" 


PALOS  PARK  95 

Park  is  glorious  then,  for  it  is  far  enough  inland 
to  escape  the  only  blight  of  our  splendid  Michi- 
gan— the  dampness  that  makes  the  leaves  in 
Chicago  merely  turn  brown  and  wither  up,  and 
brings  mourning  to  the  color-lover.  And  I  am  a 
color-lover. 

Sending  the  children — that  is,  our  children — 
on  by  themselves,  we  tarried  here.  Our  hostess 
loves  to  tell  of  her  simple  life,  and  of  her  joy  in  the 
ever-changing  views  from  her  breezy  windows. 
Summer  and  winter,  year  after  year,  she  lives 
here  quite  alone,  cultivating  her  garden  of  vege- 
tables in  summer,  and  her  garden  of  books  in  the 
winter.  Her  valley  is  very  dear  to  her  and  she 
knows  it  well.  Her  eyes  smile  as  she  points  out 
the  trees  that  mark  the  summer  and  winter  limits 
of  the  sun  or  as  she  describes  the  rosy  tintings  of 
the  dawns  and  the  gorgeous  sunset  hues,  or  the 
gray,  mysterious  morning  mists  that  fill  the  valley 
like  still  water,  blotting  out  its  trees  and  converting 
it  into  a  fairy,  fleeting  lake.  She  loves  the  winter 
best  of  all,  when  snug  and  snow-bound,  she  looks 
out  over  a  solitude  of  branches  bent  under  a 
weight  of  snow  or  clad  in  ice  armor  that  flashes 
back  a  thousand  colors  from  the  sun  as  it  crackles 
and  snaps  in  the  wind. 

She  is  not  like  the  old  Irishman  from  farther 


96 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


west  who  has  just  passed  on  the  road.  We  walked 
along  the  creek  through  his  orchard  and  his  house- 
lot  one  day,  and  he  came  out  to  call  off  the  dogs. 
He  chatted  and  cracked  his  jokes  as  he  led  us 


down  to  the  spring-house  for  a  cold  drink.  He 
proudly  showed  us  his  chickens  and  his  ducks, 
his  portulacca  and  his  poppies  and  led  us  around 
to  the  unused  and  pathless  front  of  the  house  to 


PA  LOS  PARK  97 

see  the  great  crimson  ramblers  that  nearly  hid  it 
from  view. 

He  was  cheerful  as  a  grig  until  we  asked  him 
about  the  winter.  Then  he  threw  up  his  hands. 

"Lonely?"  he  exclaimed.  "I  do  be  tired  talkin' 
to  the  trees." 

For  the  first  time  he  seemed  old  to  us.  We 
thought  him  seventy.  He  is  ninety.  Long  may 
he  flourish  like  his  own  rose  tree! 

The  people  of  Palos  are  as  interesting  as  the 
country  is  beautiful.  There  is  the  long-haired 
artist  who  carves  his  face  in  the  clay  of  the  bluffs, 
and  attracts  to  himself  numerous  beauty-lovers 
from  the  city,  so  that  the  artist  colony  of  Chicago 
is  beginning  to  know  Palos;  and  there  are  the 
inhabitants  of  the  school  teachers'  haven,  all 
o.  m.'s,  some  of  whom  came  to  call  on  our  hostess 
in  the  little  sitting  room. 

Here,  a  merry  party,  we  blithely  spent  our 
country  day.  And  while  the  big  boy  and  the  big 
little  girl  wandered  along  the  creek  and  played 
up  and  down  the  stairs  at  the  spring,  we  enjoyed 
the  pure  air  and  the  view  and  the  cheerful  femi- 
nine gossip,  and  as  evening  dusk  came  on  we 
bade  our  hostess  good-bye  and  started  back  to  the 
station. 

Our    neighbor    was   entirely   happy    at    View 


98  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

Cottage — but  the  strangeness  of  the  road  in 
the  gathering  darkness  terrified  her,  and  she 
spoke  in  no  uncertain  terms  of  the  danger  and 
the  impropriety  of  being  on  a  country  road  alone 
at  night.  The  big  boy  bristled  with  indignation. 
She  could  not  see  what  we  found  to  enjoy  in  such 
things,  and  all  the  way  home  she  was  glum  as 
a  thunder  cloud.  So,  of  course,  was  the  Only 
Child.  We  should  have  been  angry  had  we  not 
been  amused. 

They  reached  home  despondent  and  pale, 
vowing  that  they  hated  the  country.  We  have 
been  to  Palos  many  times  since.  They  have  not. 
Indeed,  we  notice  a  changed  manner.  They  are 
not  as  cordial  as  formerly. 

A  certain  church  club  includes  both  Mother 
and  our  neighbor.  It  was  the  latter's  turn  to 
preside  at  a  meeting  not  long  ago,  and  in  her  best 
gown  and  sweetest  millinery  she  spoke  feelingly 
to  the  ladies  of  their  unfortunate  city  children, 
pining  for  fresh  air  and  having  only  the  streets 
to  play  in.  (This  is  a  figure  of  speech,  for  they 
live  in  a  neighborhood  of  large  yards  and  vacant 
blocks  and  clean  lake  breezes.)  She  urged  that 
mothers  take  their  children  to  the  country,  where 
they  could  be  "alone  with  human  nature." 

Mother  was  convulsed  at  the  words  and  aghast 


PA  LOS  PARK 


99 


at  the  hypocrisy.  The  presiding  lady  never 
blinked.  She  is  down  in  our  catalogue  of  mis- 
takes along  with  a  friend  who  kept  exclaiming, 
as  we  gathered  maiden-hair  at  Lakeside,  "But 
there  are  so  many  crawling  things !  When  is  the 
next  train  back?" 

It  will  be  a  long  time  now  before  any  but  the 
tried  and  true  go  with  us  on  our  trampings. 


...... 


"Now  only  the  convent  and  the  yacht  basin  attract. 


THE  PARKS 

OF  all  Chicago's  summer  days,  the  blue  days 
are  the  best.     If  you  are  of  Chicago  you 
know  the  blue  days  well.  It  has  been  warm 
and  wilting  perhaps,  but  all  of  a  sudden  the  wind 
has  changed  to  the  north-east,  and  the  pure  cool  air 
rolls  in  from  the  lake,  a  delicious  tonic  full  of  ozone. 
Humanity  revives,  and  again  there  is  joy  in  life. 
The  sky  is  deep  blue  and  cloudless,  and  in  the 
afternoon  the  water  is  the  same  deep  blue,  touched 
with  restless  white  caps.     If  you  are  feminine 
you  put  on  your  fresh  blue  dress  with  the  white 
fixings  (nothing  else  will  do  for  complete  happi- 
ness) and  gathering  your  family  together  you  hasten 
to  Jackson  Park  to  answer  the  clear  call  of  the 
water. 

As  you  catch  the  first  glimpse  of  the  lake,  a 
band  of  deep  blue  between  the  green  of  the  trees 
103 


104 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


and  the  green  of  the  lawns,  and  hear  the  booming 
waves  dashing  high  into  spray,  your  pace  quickens. 
Leaving  the  others  to  do  as  they  like,  you  go,  brisk 
and  bare-headed,  the  whole  length  of  the  sea  wall, 
filling  your  lungs  with  the  bracing  air  till  they 


ache,  happy  in  the  joy  of  combating  and  conquer- 
ing the  stiff  wind  that  whistles  impishly  across 
your  ears,  touzles  your  hair,  and  flaps  your  skirts. 
The  big  little  girl  takes  off  her  shoes  and  stock- 
ings, gathers  up  her  dress,  and  joins  the  group 
of  tots  who  are  wading  and  splashing  on  the 
little  beach  by  the  German  building,  adding 
their  merry  shouts  to  the  noise  of  the  surf  as 


THE  PARKS  105 

they  rush  pell-mell  back  from  the  pursuing  rollers. 
It  is  quite  like  a  bit  of  the  seashore. 

All  Chicago  might  enjoy  such  a  beach  for 
miles.  Alas!  for  a  city  that  sells  her  birthright 
for  a  mess  of  pottage. 

Not  until  we  are  both  really  cold,  and  that  is 
what  we  presently  shall  be,  even  in  August,  do 
we  leave  the  lake  and  go  in  search  of  Mother 
and  the  big  boy,  who  are  on  the  golf  links.  Daisy 
and  I  do  not  play,  so  we  add  ourselves  to  the  row 
of  onlookers,  to  be  entertained  quite  as  much  by 
their  comments  as  by  the  sight  of  the  gay  golfers 
moving  over  the  perfect  sward. 

Jackson  Park  has  a  character  totally  different 
from  other  parks.  Unless  it  is  Sunday  or  a 
holiday  (when  you,  gentle  reader,  should  on  no 
account  be  there)  it  is  quite  like  a  summer 
resort;  there  is  no  crowd,  but  just  people  enough 
are  scattered  about  to  prevent  solitude  and  give  a 
comfortable  sense  of  human  fellowship. 

There  is  a  wonderful  quiet  beauty  in  the  la- 
goons, with  their  long  stretches  of  shadowy  water 
framed  in  green  of  willows  undergrown  with 
shrubbery  and  wild  flowers  of  many  sorts  and 
seasons.  One  may  wind  in  and  out  among  the 
islands  for  hours  at  a  time,  now  enlivened  by  the 
gay  launches  plying  about  with  their  merry  loads, 


io6 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


now  lulled  by  the  quiet  caresses  of  the  water 
against  the  keel,  or  by  the  calls  of  the  innumer- 
able birds  of  rest  or  of  passage  that  find  a  safe 
refuge  on  the  wooded  island,  even  the  fairy  Wooded 
Island  of  eighteen  ninety-three. 

Over  Jackson  Park  still  hovers  a  faint  shadow 
of  regret  for  the  departed  glory  of  the  Dream 


City.  Go  rowing  with  one  who  can  be  very 
quiet,  when  the  band  is  playing,  and  the  harvest- 
moon  hangs  over  the  park,  and  as  you  float 
among  the  shadows  of  some  sequestered  nook, 
there  will  rise  before  your  reverie  the  whole 
exquisite  picture  of  the  most  beautiful  creation  that 
man  has  ever  made  to  grace  this  great  round  ball. 
One  must  go  to  Jackson  Park  many  times  in 


THE  PARKS  107 

many  ways  to  know  it  even  a  little.  To  walk 
from  end  to  end  will  exhaust  any  but  the  most 
sturdy.  That,  of  course,  are  we,  yet  we  seldom 
walk.  One  has  less  ability  to  appreciate  and 
enjoy  beauty  when  his  strength  is  all  going  into 
his  legs.  Being  unconventional  and  independent 
(the  result,  quite  needless  to  say,  of  the  influence 
of  the  o.  m.),  we  occasionally  revert  to  our  old 
ways  and  go  bicycling.  Being  possessed  of  friends 
who  are  conventional  and  kind-hearted,  we  some- 
times go  in  an  automobile.  Having  a  few  shekels 
we  now  and  then  go  behind  a  horse. 

When  we  go  in  the  evening  in  the  borrowed 
automobile,  the  big  boy  is  in  his  element.  With 
the  eye  of  a  hawk  he  espies  every  pair  of  bench  - 
lovers  hidden  in  the  shrubbery  and  he  turns  the 
searchlight  full  upon  them.  Instantly  the  single 
variegated  spot  widens  out  into  a  dark  figure  of  a 
man  and  a  white  figure  of  a  woman.  The  big 
boy  laughs  gaily  as  we  fly  past.  The  o.  m.  does 
not  laugh.  To  her  a  love  affair  is  a  very  sweet 
and  solemn  thing.  Once  the  big  boy  called  out 
to  a  spot  that  did  not  widen,  "Having  a  good 
time?"  and  a  frank,  manly  voice  faded  as  it  fol- 
lowed us,  "You  bet  your  life!"  I  liked  that  spot 
better  than  the  others. 

As  the  north  end  of  the  park  speaks  of  the  past, 


lo8  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

the  south  end  speaks  of  the  future.  The  trees 
are  merely  sprouting  sticks,  and  the  tall  Lombardy 
poplars  stand  guard  over  grass  that  is  sparse  and 
yields  under  the  feet,  and  over  walks  that  are  too 
gravelly  for  walking;  but  in  a  decade  it  will  be 
splendid.  Before  the  Fair  this  part  of  the  park  was 
in  a  state  of  nature  and  many  a  picnic  table  have 
we  spread  among  low  cleft  phlox  and  violets  beneath 
the  oaks.  After  the  Fair  the  foundation  holes 
were  left  unfilled  and  the  debris  of  buildings  re- 
mained in  hideous  heaps  until  the  wind-sown 
summer  flowers  covered  it  with  a  mantle  of  gold 
and  purple  and  green.  Then  again  we  gathered 
blossoms  there.  But  now  it  is  only  the  convent 
of  La  Rabida  and  the  yacht  basin  that  attract. 

On  a  fine  Saturday  afternoon  the  basin  is  all 
astir  with  life.  Gay  groups  of  young  people  are 
rowed  out  to  the  yachts.  Anchors  are  lifted,  sails 
are  set,  and  one  by  one  the  boats  slip  through  the 
channel  past  La  Rabid  a 's  granite  sea  wall.  There 
is  wholesome  exhilaration  for  those  aboard  and 
there  is  quiet  pleasure  for  those  on  shore  watching 
the  gleaming  white  of  the  sails  diminish  into 
the  blue  of  the  lake  and  the  sky. 

La  Rabida  is  beautiful  by  moonlight.  A  launch 
will  take  you  from  the  boathouse  out  into  Lake 
Michigan  and  along  the  park  front,  and  you  may 


THE  PARKS 


109 


see  the  convent  from  the  water-side,  perched  on 
a  grim  rock  wall,  all  silver  light  and  dark  im- 
penetrable shadows. 

Come  out  from  the  park  to  the  westward — out 
on  the  old  Midway.  Where  once  was  din  and 
clatter  and 
gay  confusion 
of  tongues, 
there  stretches 
now  a  wide, 
green,  peace- 
ful mile  of 
roadways  and 
sward  and 
elms.  Dear 
old  Midway ! 
We  love  you, 
both  past  and 
present. 

At  the  other 
end  of  the 
Midway  Plai- 
sance  is  Wash- 
ington Park,  more  frequented  than  Jackson 
Park,  but  far  less  attractive  to  a  nature-lover. 
Things  are  more  set  in  Washington  Park  and 
great  liberties  have  been  taken  with  the  face  of 


no  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

nature.  The  lagoons  look  stiff  and  artificial,  and 
the  flower  beds  are  in  awful  geometrical  patterns 
and  of  conglomerations  of  plants  which  were 
never  made  to  grow  together.  Only  when  they 
flame  with  tulips  and  hyacinths  in  the  early 
spring,  or  with  geraniums  and  cannas  in  the  late 
fall,  are  they  endurable. 

In  other  respects  Washington  Park  does  not 
suffer  by  comparison.  Indeed,  the  finest  thing 
in  all  our  park  system  is  here,  the  great  meadow, 
stretching  for  a  good  quarter  of  a  mile  in  every 
direction,  just  green,  open  space,  close  mown 
of  late  summers  by  a  picturesque  flock  of  fine 
sheep.  In  the  middle  of  the  day  it  is  a  great 
playground  where  boys,  big  and  little,  may  en- 
joy wholesome  athletic  sports.  Some  May  morn- 
ing when  the  lilacs  around  its  border  are  in  full 
flower  and  fragrance,  walk  across  it  and  bless 
the  artistic  genius  who  laid  out  the  park  and  left 
this  open  space  where  the  long  far  view  rests 
the  eye  as  the  solitude  rests  the  ear.  I  heard 
lately  of  a  prominent  man  who  was  being  urged 
to  assist  the  project  of  the  outer  park  belt.  After 
seeing  the  meadow,  he  declined,  saying,  "What 
do  you  want  of  any  more  parks  when  all  this 
isn't  planted  yet?"  From  such  may  the  South 
Park  Commissioners  be  delivered ! 


THE  PARKS  in 

If  the  great  meadow  of  Washington  Park  is 
the  finest  thing  in  the  system,  the  rose  garden  of 
Washington  Park  is  the  most  exquisite.  It  is  so 
sequestered  that  even  devotees  of  the  park  do 
not  know  of  its  existence.  I  had  the  delight  of 
discovering  it  for  myself;  a  thing  which  you, 
dear  reader,  cannot  now  enjoy.  Nevertheless, 
enter  the  park  some  June  day  at  the  old  cable 
power  house,  and  within  a  stone's  throw  you  will 
come  upon  a  gateway  in  a  hedge,  and  passing 
through  it,  find  yourself  in  a  French  garden  of 
roses  and  roses  and  nothing  but  roses,  all  aglow 
with  pink  and  crimson.  No  disfiguring  gravel 
paths  are  here;  just  grassy  green  spaces  between 
the  rose  beds;  and  all  around  is  the  greenest 
terrace,  where  two  great  cottonwoods  stand  as 
sentinels  at  the  gateways.  The  garden  is  so  retired 
and  elegant  and  daintily  artificial  that  you  imagine 
yourself  in  the  grounds  of  some  French  palace 
of  bygone  days,  in  old  brocade  and  paniers, 
powdered  wig  and  perfumed  lace,  carrying  a  staff 
and  followed  by  a  group  of  courtiers.  For  all 
your  vision  tells,  you  might  be  in  any  part  of  the 
world.  Beyond  the  hedge  is  nothing  but  tall 
shrubbery  and  tree  tops  and  sky. 

Sit  through  a  summer  morning  in  the  rose 
garden  in  blissful  quiet,  under  the  shade  of  the 


H2  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

sentinel  trees,  with  a  book  you  love,  dreaming, 
and  drinking  in  beauty  and  fragrance,  and  you 
will  go  home  sweetened  and  refreshed.  Espe- 
cially if  you  take  your  way  past  the  lily  ponds,  to 
add  a  picture  of  delicious  coolness:  tall  lotus, 
white  pond-lilies,  yellow  water  poppies,  and  blue 
water  hyacinths. 

Washington  Park  is  not  Jackson  Park,  but  it 
has  beauties  of  its  own. 

Over  the  West  Parks  it  is  well  to  draw  a  veil 
until,  well,  until  things  are  different.  But  our 
children  and  our  neighbors'  children  would  feel 
cheated  and  abused  if  we  did  not  go  each  summer 
to  Lincoln  Park,  where  they  spend  hours  glued 
to  the  nettings  around  the  monkey  cages  or 
deliciously  trembling  before  the  roaring  lions. 
Mother  and  I  used  to  stay  dutifully  by,  to  tell 
them  things  they  did  not  wish  to  hear,  and  re- 
fused to  remember.  But  we  found  out  that 
they  could  have  more  fun  without  us  and  we 
could  have  more  fun  without  them.  So  now 
we  escape  the  smells  of  the  zoo  and  wait  at  the 
lily  ponds.  They  spend  their  nickels  for  pop- 
corn on  their  way  back,  and  we  all  sit  and  munch, 
careless  of  our  dignity.  This  is  one  of  the  rites 
and  ceremonies  pertaining  to  Lincoln  Park.  We 
never  do  it  anvwhere  else. 


THE  PARKS  113 

Lincoln  Park  has  a  holiday  air  of  gaiety  that 
suggests  some  European  capital,  rather  than 
business-like  Chicago.  The  park  is  fairly  over- 
flowing with  people,  mostly  of  two  types — heavy 
German  families  that  have  sat  bare  spots  in  the 
grass,  and  chance  visitors  in  eager  haste  to  see 
everything  there  is  to  be  seen  and  to  do  everything 
it  is  possible  to  do. 

There  is  zeal  for  accomplishment  rather  than 
for  enjoyment.  Infected  by  it,  the  o.  m.'s  peda- 
gogical spirit  becomes  rampant,  and  the  children 
are  dragged  into  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  and 
made  to  look  at  bones  and  bugs.  Gentle  reader, 
tell  me  why?  In  Jackson  Park  is  the  Field 
Museum,  much  ampler  and  more  attractive, 
yet  never  on  a  sunny  picnic  day  is  she  moved  to 
visit  it.  At  other  times  Art  goads  her  on  and 
she  marshals  the  children  off  to  the  park's  chief 
glory,  the  St.  Gaudens'  figure  of  the  Great  Eman- 
cipator. As  we  sit  on  the  stone  bench  surrounding 
the  statue,  and  gaze  at  the  great  kind  face  kissed 
by  the  afternoon  sunbeams  that  glint  through  the 
trees,  we  find  quiet  and  momentary  repose.  But 
soon  the  children  demand  the  statue  of  their  own 
Hans  Christian  Andersen  and  his  ugly-duckling 
swan,  and  we  snub  Schiller  and  Franklin  and  the 
other  dignitaries  to  go  to  find  it.  From  this  swan 


114 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


to  the  ridiculous  foot-propelled  swan-boats  that 
make  the  circuit  of  the  lagoons  and  canals,  is  an 
easy  descent,  so  the  children  run  off  for  a  ride, 
while  Mother  and  I  walk  around  the  warm,  sunny, 
blessed,  old-fashioned  garden  in  front  of  the 


greenhouses,  hunting  this  and  that  old   favorite 
and  finding  them  all. 

Then  we  march  down  to  the  lake  shore  drive, 
and  from  the  shade  of  the  great  old  trees  watch 
the  passing  show  of  glittering  equipages  and 
holiday  promenaders,  while  the  children  play 
hide-and-seek  up  and  down  and  around  the  im- 
posing Grant  monument. 


THE  PARKS  115 

* 

The  beach  allures  us,  especially  the  women's 
beach,  made  gay  by  bright  suits  and  caps  and 
much  frolicking  of  children.  I  am  sure  that  no- 
where else  can  there  be  so  much  humanity  to 
the  gallon. 

Farther  north  is  the  fresh  air  sanitarium,  built 
out  over  the  water.  Here  Daisy  must  go,  for 
her  little  mother-heart  takes  in  and  loves  the  sick 
babies  that  are  brought  by  the  hundred  for 
the  healing  that  is  in  fresh  air,  wholesome  food, 
and  friendly  human  sympathy,  and  that  is  to  be 
had  here  without  money  and  without  price. 
Surely  this  and  the  La  Rabida  sanitarium  in  Jack- 
son Park  are  the  city's  sweetest  charities.  Blessed 
be  the  great  daily  paper  that  does  so  much  for 
the  bodily  betterment  of  Chicago's  babies.  If 
another  great  paper  would  as  vigorously  concern 
itself  with  the  moral  health  of  the  community, 
the  city  would  be  regenerated. 

In  the  late  afternoon  the  sanitarium  is  all 
gentle  stir.  The  nurses  are  giving  the  babies  their 
last  attentions,  and  the  physicians  are  rngving 
about  with  their  last  friendly  advice.  The 
mothers  take  their  departure  in  the  omnibuses 
that  convey  them  and  their  precious  burdens  to 
the  cars. 

We  are  warned  that  we  too  must  face  home- 


n6 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


ward  and  not  tarry,  although  the  beach  grows 
cooler  and  more  inviting,  unless  perchance  we 
have  brought  our  supper  and  are  to  stay  for 
the  concert.  But  that  is  not  likely;  certainly  not 
with  so  many  children  along.  The  day  has  been 
too  strenuous.  Little  feet  are  flagging  and  little 
eyes  are  drooping.  They  will  be  tight  shut  long 
before  we  are  home. 

A  ten  mile  walk  in  the  country  tires  our  family 
not  at  all,  but  a  day  in  Lincoln  Park  costs  us 
two  days  apiece. 


'Sells  her  birthright  for  a  mess  oj  pottage. 


SEEING  CHICAGO 

A  PLEASANT  way  to  spend  a  bright 
afternoon  that  finds  you  down  town, 
is  to  take  passage  in  one  of  the  numer- 
ous automobiles  that  make  the  circuit  of  the 
boulevards  and  parks.  If  you  happen  to  have 
visitors  with  you  from  out  of  town,  who 
must  be  duly  impressed  with  the  vastness  of 
everything  pertaining  to  Chicago,  risk  your  life 
in  one  of  the  huge  amphitheatres  that  load  up 
before  the  restaurants  and  hotels,  and  go  south. 
If  you  can  get  a  gallery  seat,  choose  it  by  all 
means,  for  it  gives  you  a  unique  point  of  view. 
Even  the  hurrying  crowds  on  State  street  have  a 
gala  air  from  this  bad  eminence,  and  as  you 
always  have  to  wait  an  unconscionable  time  for 
119 


120  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

the  thing  to  start,  you  will  need  all  the  entertain- 
ment possible  to  keep  you  and  your  guests  in 
good  humor. 

When  finally  the  monster  takes  its  lumbering 
course  through  the  crowds,  too  heavy  and 
cumbersome  to  turn  to  right  or  left,  your  heart 
clogs  up  your  throat,  and  your  hands  clutch  the 
railing  as  you  pray  silently,  or  perhaps  audibly, 
that  you  may  escape  unmaimed,  and  that 
the  grace  of  common  sense  may  be  given  you, 
if  ever  you  are  moved  to  mount  the  like  again. 
But  the  thing  itself  is  serene  in  the  knowledge 
that  everything  on  wheels  or  legs  will  either  shy 
or  stop  at  sight  of  it,  and  once  out  of  the  mazes 
of  car  tracks  and  the  alarming  clang  of  gongs  and 
rumblings  of  trains  overhead,  and  imo  Michigan 
boulevard,  you  breathe  easier. 

Presently  your  attention  becomes  riveted  upon 
the  young  and  innocent-looking  megaphone  man 
who  is  assailing  your  ears  with  stale  jokes  and 
original  lies.  You  wonder  that  the  men  do  not 
rise  and  slay  him,  until  you  look  over  your  fellow- 
passengers  and  discover  that  you  are  the  only 
native  aboard,  and  that  their  trusting  and  bu- 
colic minds  are  all  unaware  of  his  wickedness. 
You  long  to  slay  him  yourself,  or  at  least  to  rise 
and  denounce  him.  But  in  most  people  the  de- 


SEEING   CHICAGO  121 

mand  for  propriety  is  much  keener  than  the  de- 
mand for  truth,  and  you  are  no  exception.  So 
on  he  goes,  pointing  out  residences  of  millionaire 
packers  and  brewers  and  car  magnates  where 
you  know  they  do  not  live,  and  peopling  long 
blocks  where  there  is  nothing  to  tell,  with  million- 
aires of  his  own  invention. 

Where  the  boulevard  is  closed  for  repairs,  your 
vehicle  makes  a  perilous  turn  into  Indiana  avenue, 
and  as  you  pass  old  Trinity  Church  the  mega- 
phone roars  out  "ruins  of  All  Souls'  Roman 
Catholic  Church."  Now,  Chicago  has  an  All 
Souls'  Church,  but  it  is  as  far  as  possible  from 
being  Roman  Catholic;  and  who  so  ignorant 
as  not  to  know  that  the  great,  rich  Mother  Church 
would  never  let  one  of  her  edifices  lie  in  ruins  for 
years  to  the  detriment  of  the  souls  of  the  parish? 
But  no  one  objects.  When,  on  our  return  trip, 
we  pass  the  real  home  of  All  Souls'  Church  in  the 
brand-new  Abraham  Lincoln  Center,  we  are 
electrified  by  the  stentorian  sentence,  "Lincoln 
Center,  where  Abraham  Lincoln  delivered  his 
presidential  address."  Even  to  this  there  was 
no  demur.  From  then  on,  we  fell  to  picturing 
punishments  to  fit  the  crime  in  a  future  world. 

But  by  the  time  we  have  turned  from  Michigan 
boulevard  into  Grand  boulevard  our  stentor 


122  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

shows  signs  of  weariness,  and  our  attention  is 
less  distracted. 

Grand  boulevard's  triple  roadway  grows  grander 
every  year.  Little  by  little  the  branches  are 
reaching  up  and  across.  Already  the  lawns  on 
either  side  of  the  main  road  have  become  gothic 
cloisters  where  one  may  walk  miles,  and  meditate 
alone.  No  shrubbery,  no  irritating  flower  beds, 
just  perfect  grass  and  growing  elms.  The  next 
generation  will  see  Grand  boulevard  one  of  the 
world's  most  stately  drives.  The  only  addition 
possible  to  it  will  be  beautiful  statuary.  Already 
one  piece  has  appeared,  the  great  equestrian  statue 
of  Washington  at  the  entrance  to  the  park  that 
bears  his  name. 

Along  the  shady  drives  of  Washington  park 
and  the  sunny  stretch  of  the  Midway  and  into 
Jackson  park  we  roll,  and  stop  in  front  of  the 
German  building.  Here  the  passengers  alight 
to  seek  refreshment  or  to  rest  their  limbs  by 
strolling  up  and  down  in  the  splendid  willow 
grove  or  along  the  sea  wall. 

A  little  Italian  newsboy,  evidently  a  protege 
of  the  megaphone  man,  by  which  token  I  can 
forgive  him  a  little,  has  come  all  the  way  out 
with  us,  sitting  way  down  on  the  front  edge,  very 
still  and  open-eyed. 


SEEING   CHICAGO 


123 


An  old  lady  who  has  not  disembarked  demands 
a  glass  of  water,  and  calls  to  some  boys  near  at 
hand,  offering  a  dime  to  the  one  that  brings  it. 
Our  tiny  Italian  starts,  but  it  is  a  demand  and  an 
offer  outside  the  range  of  his  experience.  And 
he  who  hesitates  is  lost.  There  is  a  race  into 


the  German  building  and  immediately  one  long- 
legged  lad  has  emerged  with  a  glass  and  filled 
it  at  a  fountain  near  by.  By  the  time  the  next 
urchin  issues  from  the  building  the  old  lady  has 
the  refreshing  draught,  and  as  she  fumbles  for 
her  purse  the  lad  runs  off  laughing,  and  is  out  of 
sight  before  she  can  even  thank  him. 


124  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

The  Italian  infant  looks  at  us  all  in  hopeless 
wonder.  This  too,  is  beyond  his  experience. 
The  lad  is  a  fool!  He  himself  is  wiser,  and  he 
takes  largess  for  returning  the  glass,  with 
open  hand  and  heart. 

I  should  like  to  know  the  long  boy  when  he 
has  grown  up.  Think  of  wilfully  giving  up  two 
ice  cream  sodas  on  a  warm  day! 

Again  the  great  engine  is  in  motion,  along 
the  lake  drive,  up  East  End  avenue,  past 
our  gayest  of  hotels  and  into  beautiful  Drexel 
boulevard,  a  narrow  mile  and  a  half  of  park, 
set  bountifully  with  shrubbery.  Here  and 
there  are  clearings  for  flower  beds,  but  one 
easily  and  thankfully  forgets  them  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  memory  of  the  thickets  of  great 
old  lilacs  and  syringas  that  make  the  boulevard 
glorious. 

If  you  have  ridden  your  bicycle  close  up  along 
the  park  edge  some  warm  evening  in  lilac  time, 
with  the  fragrance  enveloping  you  like  a  cloud, 
and  the  bushes  gleaming  like  great  bouquets 
among  the  dancing  black  leaf  shadows  that  the 
arc  lights  conjure,  or  if  you  have  walked  on  a 
balmy  moonlight  night  along  the  gravel  paths 
close  under  the  laden  branches  to  let  the  great 
blossom  clusters  brush  your  cheeks  as  you  pass, 


SEEING   CHICAGO 


125 


you  have  had  one  of  your  life's  best  feasts  of 
beauty  and  fragrance. 

As  your  huge  vehicle  bears  you  back  along  the 
lake  front,  soon  to  be  another  beautiful  South 


Park,  and  turns  into  the  business  streets  to  reach 
its  starting  point,  grazing  the  footboard  of  one 
trolley  car  and  the  fender  of  another,  your  guest 
assures  you  of  his  conviction  that  Chicago  is 
really  the  biggest,  the  most  astonishing,  and  most 


126  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

superlatively — but  you  do  not  listen!  You  are 
singing  paeans  of  thanksgiving  for  your  safe  return, 
and  as  you  descend  from  your  lofty  pinnacle,  you 
vow  a  solemn  vow  that  never  will  you  set  foot  in 
one  of  these  fearsome  juggernauts  again. 

But  if  there  is  no  guest  and  the  city's  reputation 
is  not  at  stake,  and  what  you  want  is  to  get  out  of 
the  noise  and  dust  and  to  give  a  brief  time  to 
your  soul's  refreshment,  take  one  of  the  small 
machines  that  go  to  Lincoln  Park.  Back  seats 
are  best  here  too,  because  you  are  out  of  range 
of  the  fool  talk  of  the  chauffeur. 

Once  over  the  river,  your  way  leads  up  one  of 
the  quiet  avenues  that  were  once  Chicago's  pride, 
but  have  suffered  their  inevitable  fate  from  the 
city's  growth.  They  are  a  pride  no  longer.  The 
old  residents  have  migrated  farther  out  and 
the  old  residences  are  turned  into  "genteel" 
boarding  houses — most  vulgar  but  expressive 
adjective!  They  stretch  along,  row  after  row 
of  three-story  and  basement  bricks,  whose  high 
steps  are  thronged  after  dinner  with  gaily-chat- 
tering melancholy  multitudes  of  the  city's  un- 
attached population,  mostly  young  clerks  and 
sales-people. 

In  the  afternoon,  however,  these  shaded  streets 
are  very  restful.  We  meet  a  grocer's  wagon 


SEEING   CHICAGO  127 

here  and  there;  a  hurdy-gurdy  passes  not  too 
near,  a  carriage  appears  now  and  then. 

At  Chicago  avenue  we  turn  east  and  enter  the 
Lake  Shore  drive  at  the  old  water  works. 

I  can  never  pass  the  water  works  without  a 
thrill  of  delightful  memories.  One  of  my  childish 
wonder-journeys  was  from  the  West  Side  over 
to  this  then-used  water  tower.  We  went,  a  bevy 
of  children,  unattended,  and  each  way  we  must 
cross  the  river  twice! 

The  going  was  a  wonderful  Arabian  Nights' 
adventure !  We  had  our  choice  between  crossing 
the  river  on  one  of  the  old  wooden  bridges  turned 
by  one  or  two  men  pushing  on  a  long  lever,  or 
going  through  the  brand-new  tunnels;  and  never 
was  a  decision  harder  to  make.  To  go  across 
the  bridge  meant  to  see  the  busy  river,  jammed 
with  screaming  tugs  and  tows — great  schooners 
piled  high  with  lumber  most  likely ;  and  we  could 
stand  and  watch  them  go  one  by  one  through  the 
draw.  And  after  a  while,  when  the  bell  rang 
for  another  opening,  we  could  scurry  across  with 
the  hurrying  teams  and  step  off  with  brave  and 
jaunty  air,  just  as  the  bridge  began  to  move; 
or  we  could  boldly  remain  upon  it,  regardless  of 
the  bell  and  The  Law,  and  be  swung  out  into 
midstream,  where  we  could  look  down  on  the 


128  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

deck  of  the  passing  schooner  and  call  out  to 
the  idle  crew.  Then,  as  the  turning  bridge  fol- 
lowed the  vessel,  we  found  ourselves  in  delightful 
bewilderment  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river, 
and  stepped  dizzily  off.  Wonderful  experience, 
perennially  new! 

But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  the  tunnels! 
They  were  so  mysterious  and  so  fascinating! 
There  was  even  the  alluring  possibility  of  Robbers ! 
The  carriages  then  all  went  through  the  tunnels, 
as  yet  unprofaned  by  street  cars.  There  was  a 
separate  road  for  foot  passengers,  reached 
from  the  street  by  a  crooked  winding  stair  that 
seemed  to  lead  down  to  the  very  depths  of  the 
earth.  But  we  knew!  The  last  turn  brought 
us  into  the  cold  gray  passage-way  and  then  we 
ran  down  with  all  our  might,  our  screams  rever- 
berating from  the  imprisoning  walls  in  terrifying 
roars,  and  the  speed  we  gained  was  enough  to 
carry  us  panting  half  way  up  the  opposite  incline. 
In  the  bottom,  the  white- washed  walls  were  al- 
ways wet  and  it  was  dank  and  shivery,  and  through, 
the  open  archways  we  caught  glimpses  of  the  more 
brightly  lighted  carriage  way  and  heard  the  deafen- 
ing hoof-beats  as  of  a  hundred  king's  horses. 
How  deliciously  fearful  we  were,  and  how  brave ! 
And  when  we  emerged  how  stifling  the  warmth 


SEEING   CHICAGO  129 

of  the  upper  world  and  how  pale  and  unreal  the 
white  daylight  after  the  red  glare  of  the  noisy 
gas  jets  that  flared  and  smoked  in  the  fierce 
draughts  that  always  swept  through! 

And  to  go  to  the  water  works  and  back  we 
had  to  cross  the  river  four  times ! 

Sometimes  we  meant  to  go  to  Lincoln  Park,  but 
we  seldom  got  farther  than  the  water  works.  We 
climbed  the  dizzy  winding  iron  stair  to  the  top, 
and  looked  down  over  the  city.  A  four-story 
building  was  very  high;  a  six-story  was  the  limit 
of  human  imagination.  But  here  we  were, 
higher  yet,  grandly  higher!  High  heaven  itself 
does  not  seem  so  lofty  now. 

Then,  having  descended,  we  stood  enthralled 
by  the  great,  polished,  throbbing  engines,  ate 
our  luncheon  in  the  little  park  about  the  place  or 
down  on  the  shore,  and  then,  turning  homeward, 
twice  more  crossed  the  river. 

When  we  did  go  on  as  far  as  the  park  to  see 
the  bears  that  then  constituted  the  zoological 
garden,  it  was  through  the  old  burying  ground. 
Today,  as  we  ride  over  the  spot  in  our  automobile, 
there  is  just  one  tomb  left,  and  about  it  in  the 
sunshine  there  is  life  and  stir  and  holiday  gaiety. 

The  drives  of  the  park  are  crowded  on  a  pleas- 
ant afternoon,  and  not  the  least  gay  of  the  drivers 


130  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

are  the  occupants  of  the  pony  carts  laboriously 
urging  on  the  long-suffering  calico  ponies  that 
are  kept  for  hire. 

Up  the  west  side  of  the  park  you  go  and  down 
the  breezy  boulevard  into  the  Lake  Shore  drive. 
If  our  megaphone  man  of  the  south  parks  were 
here,  he  would  not  need  to  tell  lies,  so  thickly 
studded  is  it  with  the  homes  of  wealthy  and  not- 
able citizens. 

Full  of  memories,  you  are  sped  over  Rush 
street  bridge,  past  the  Fort  Dearborn  tablet,  and 
through  River  street  back  to  the  shopping  dis- 
trict. As  you  step  out  of  the  automobile  you 
look  at  your  watch.  You  have  been  gone  only 
an  hour !  But  to  the  Chicago-born  that  hour  can 
be  a  life's  reminiscence. 


LOTS 

WE  are  a  public  spirited  family.   The  o.  m. 
in  particular  looms  large  in  discussions  of 
municipal  art  and  municipal  ownership, 
high  license  and  high  bill-boards,  and  with  much 
sense  of  civic  righteousness,  cheerfully  pays  her 
personal  property  tax,  which  is  more  than  her  rich 
neighbors  do.  But  when  we  are  asked  to  subscribe 
to  the  local  improvement  association,  we  balk 
and  consider  long. 

To  be  sure  they  have  sent  out  their  white- wings 
who  have  cleared  away  carloads  of  scattering 
paper  and  tin  cans  and  various  unsightly  rubbish, 
and  their  watering  carts  have  much  mitigated 
the  stifling  summer  dust,  for  which  blessings  we 
try  to  be  thankful;  but  at  the  same  time  they 
have  done  us  deep  and  permanent  injury,  for 
they  have  exterminated  the  brave  field  flowers, — 
weeds,  they  call  them — and  they  have  driven  away 
the  boys,  equally  obnoxious  to  their  well  ordered 
minds,  from  playing  ball  on  the  vacant  lots. 


134  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

It  seems  as  if  more  and  more  in  the  cities, 
the  weeds  and  the  boys  were  coming  to  be 
classed  together  as  troublesome  and  superfluous 
things. 

How  I  hate  the  smug  and  pompous  personage 
who  is  the  leading  light  of  one  particular  asso- 
ciation, as  he  briskly  makes  his  rounds,  planning 
new  devastations,  and  causing  the  children  to 
flee  at  his  coming ;  for  has  he  not  decreed  that  the 
precious  vacant  lots  are  not  to  be  degraded  into 
playgrounds,  but  shall  stand,  mowed  and  trimmed 
and  untrampled,  sleek  monuments  to  the  glory 
of  his  association? 

Down  with  improvement  associations,  say  I, 
and  our  big  boy  and  all  the  other  boys  shout 
assent. 

It  is  but  a  few  summers  since  I  looked  forward 
eagerly  to  the  coming  of  July,  for  then  my  thistle 
field  bloomed  in  beauty  and  honey-sweet  fra- 
grance. A  path  led  down  from  the  sidewalk 
diagonally  across  the  low-lying  field,  and  here  I 
walked  daily,  my  eyes  just  at  the  level  of  the 
thistle  tops,  whose  irregular  heads  made  a  purple 
mist  for  me  to  look  through.  In  the  morning 
coolness  they  were  so  fresh  and  sweet  and  in  the 
afternoon  sunshine  so  heavy  with  perfume,  and 
always  so  brave  and  sturdy  and  flourishing! 


LOTS  135 

Somehow  they  seemed  so  distinctly  mine!  And 
when  their  red  purple  had  faded  to  blue 
purple  and  then  to  white,  feathery  seed-tops, 
they  had  fulfilled  their  season's  mission,  and 
earned  repose  until  July  should  come  again.  Now 
they  are  ruthlessly  cut  down.  No  one  is  the 
better  or  happier  and  I  am  much  the  sadder. 

I  may  still  enjoy  the  vacant  lots  by  extending 
my  walks  beyond  the  precincts  of  the  improve- 
ment associations,  but  there  are  no  more  thistle 
fields! 

The  tall,  rank,  green- white  sweet  clover  is 
another  of  my  joys,  and  it  still  holds  its  own.  It 
is  so  free  and  fresh  and  breezy.  If  you  pick  the 
blossoms  and  dry  them,  they  make  the  most 
delightful  sachets  for  your  linen  chest,  sweeter 
even  than  lavender.  For  fifteen  years  I  have 
known  this  as  I  walked  among  the  clover,  and  for 
fifteen  years  I  have  not  made  sachets.  But  this 
summer  I  am  again  resolved  to  do  it ! 

Down  near  the  lake  the  open  lots  are  tangles 
of  sweet  clover  leaning  far  over  the  unused 
walks,  brushing  you  saucily  as  you  pass  along 
completely  hidden  by  its  tall  tops;  and  under  the 
native  oaks  that  still  remain  here  and  there,  the 
dear  old  bouncing-Betty  has  run  loose  and  wild 
and  sticks  out  at  you  temptingly  through  the  wire 


136  ROUND   ABOUT  CHICAGO 

fences  that  some  one,  for  some  unknown  reason, 
has  put  around  the  lots.  I  can  never  see  bouncing- 
Betty  without  visions  and  odors  of  warm  brown 
acres,  with  a  quiet  white  farmhouse  and  its  ram- 
bling garden  in  their  midst. 

There  are  other  surprises  down  by  the  lake. 
Back  from  the  road  that  fronts  the  most  fash- 


ionable of  hotels,  is  a  waste  of  forbidding  sand, 
and  no  one  ventures  there.  But  beyond  and 
through  it,  is  a  bit  of  curving  beach,  hard  and 
pebbly,  with  one  or  two  stranded  drift  logs  to 
lean  against.  If  you  listened  you  could  hear  the 
voices  of  the  promenaders  at  the  hotel  and  the 
tooting  automobiles  on  their  way  to  the  park. 
But  your  back  is  to  all  such,  and  your  eyes  face 
the  swinging  curve  of  the  wave-lapped  bay  and 


LOTS  137 

the  changing  tints  of  the  water  and  the  clouds. 
The  sky  looks  very  near  and  immense,  while  far 
to  the  north  looms  the  gray,  smoke-dimmed  city, 
unreal  and  apart. 

In  the  very  middle  of  a  low  weed-grown  vacant 
block,  all  about  which  flat  buildings  are  springing 
up,  still  unknown  and  unsuspected  to  the  multi- 
plying race  of  those  whose  only  habitat  is  the 
pavements,  grow  sunny  armloads  of  golden -rod 
and  bright  yellow  sunflowers,  and  as  we  emerge 
with  our  burden,  people  wonder  where  we  have 
been  journeying — surely  somewhere  far  out  of 
town. 

There  are  some  beauties  that  even  an  improve- 
ment association  cannot  destroy,  and  the  close- 
guarded  lots  near  us  still  are  lovely  until  mowing 
time.  In  the  early  spring  the  dandelions  make 
field  of  cloth  of  gold,  to  turn  in  a  week  or  two 
into  silvery  expanses  of  feathery  what-o'clocks. 
Later  the  June  grass  and  the  red-top  are  all  in 
bloom  on  the  low  ridges,  and  the  squirrel  grass — 
its  plumes  were  "pussy-tails"  in  our  childhood — 
flourishes  along  the  walks. 

The  vacant  lots  between  houses,  too  small  to 
merit  the  attention  of  our  enemy,  still  attract  our 
explorations,  and  their  green  tangles  yield  rich 
and  surprising  results.  A  blue  closed  gentian 


138  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

lately  rewarded  us.  But  usually  it  is  some  com- 
mon plant  grown  to  unusual  luxuriance — great 
heads  of  reddest  clover,  or  extra  big  black-eyed 
Susans,  or  a  giant  jimson  weed,  covered  with  a 
delicate  web  of  wild  morning-glory. 

It  is  the  lots  in  the  most  aristocratic  neighbor- 
hoods that  yield  the  richest  harvests.  There  are 
few  children  there,  and  those  there  are  are  hope- 
lessly well  cared  for.  That  they  should  spoil  their 
clothes  and  scratch  their  skins  rummaging  in 
weeds  is  too  dreadful  to  contemplate. 

The  homes  are  splendid,  the  grounds  spacious 
and  faultlessly  kept  and  pleasing  to  the  eye  of  the 
wayfarer,  but  in  midsummer  the  owners  are  else- 
where, and  while  children  are  dying  of  dirt  and 
heat  and  smells  in  the  Yards  two  miles  back,  and 
in  the  slums  three  miles  cityward,  the  gates  of 
these  paradises  are  closed  and  the  lawns  untrod 
save  by  the  foot  of  the  gardener. 

In  a  morning  walk  along  the  shaded  avenues 
you  see  no  soul  save  a  man  or  two  moving  the 
hose  on  the  lawn,  a  letter  carrier  on  his  early 
rounds,  a  grocer's  clerk  calling  for  his  order,  or  a 
maid  engaged  in  some  kitchen  activity  at  the  back 
door. 

The  walk  is  solitary  and  beautiful  and  refresh- 
ing— unless  you  allow  your  mind  to  go  deeper, 


LOTS 


139 


and  see  the  tragedy  and  injustice  underneath 
it  all. 

But,  cui  bono? 

Today  let  us  enjoy  alike  the  royal  clematis  and 
the  stately  cannas,  the  modest  morning-glory  and 
the  plebeian  jimson  weed,  the  graces  of  the  rich 
and  the  patience  of  the  poor.  To  the  man  in  the 
moon  there  is  probably  small  difference  in  us 
mortals  after  all. 


"  The  deep,  cool  ravine" 


RAVINIA 

WE  have  two  kinds  of  trips  to  the  North 
Shore — civilized    and    uncivilized.     The 
first  can  be  taken  even  by  a  perfect  lady, 
so  thoroughly  proper  and  conventional  are  all  the 
proceedings.     Moreover,  she  can  look  pretty  while 
she  is  at  it;  that  is,  if  nature  has  been  somewhat 
kind  to  her.     She  can  wear  her  white  dress  and 
her  lace  hat  with  the  pink  rose  garden,  and  come 
back  unwearied  and  undamaged. 

Take  a  morning  train  to  Highland  Park.  It 
is  a  restful  pleasure  to  wander  about  the  town. 
It  has  homey  houses  with  rose  hedges  and  vine- 
laced  porches,  and  air  fresh  and  sweet  with 
indefinable  woodsey  fragrance.  If  you  are  going 
just  once,  find  Vine  street,  and  go  eastward  to  the 
lake.  You  will  come  out  through  patches  of 
delicious  white  clover,  and  tangled  wood  lots  where 
143 


144  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

gray  squirrels  scamper  in  mock  alarm  as  you 
approach,  to  the  top  of  the  high  bluff,  on  one 
side  of  the  road  wild  and  weedy,  on  the  other 
mown  and  even. 

There  you  may  look  down  upon  a  stretch  of 
sand  beach  punctuated  with  piers,  where  children 
are  sporting  gleefully  on  the  sand  or  in  the  water, 
and  if  it  is  a  calm  day  their  voices  are  just  audible 
above  the  washing  of  the  waves.  On  the  glorious 
blue  expanse  a  sail  drifts  by. 

But  for  these  sights  you  need  not  have  come 
just  here;  the  lake  is  the  same  for  many  long 
miles.  You  came  to  see  the  garden.  So  you 
must  go  back  to  the  first  road  and  turn  south- 
ward. Soon  you  will  find  it,  on  the  right,  hemmed 
in  by  hedges  of  roses  and  marvelous  shrubbery; 
known  far  and  wide  as  the  fairest  of  small  gardens, 
so  perfect  is  its  succession  of  color,  delicate  and 
tender  in  the  spring,  gay  and  flaunting  in  mid- 
summer, rich  and  gorgeous  in  the  autumn,  and 
so  artfully  arranged  are  its  vistas  across  unbroken 
lawns  to  the  ravine  and  the  road  that  form  its 
limits. 

We  entered  the  grounds,  Mother  and  I,  for  the 
owner  invites  garden  lovers  to  come  and  see. 
Down  past  the  rockery  we  all  at  once  found  our- 
selves startling  a  whisking  squirrel  in  a  rustic 


RA  VINA 


lookout  point  among  the  tree  tops,  overhanging 
the  deep,  cool  ravine.  Here  we  sat  as  though 
the  place  were  our  own — and  is  it  not  if  we  may 
enjoy  it?  From  the  lookout  a  rustic  bridge  leads 


over  a  tiny  tributary  gully  where  all  is  un- 
touched wilderness.  We  should  love  to  sit  here 
a  few  moments  sometimes  when  the  world  has 
been  too  much  with  us ;  out  of  sight  of  everything 
human  and  artificial  and  toilsome. 


146  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

The  road  makes  a  rather  abrupt  turn  toward 
"the  lake  and  down  the  ravine.  It  would  bring  us 
out  on  the  sand  with  the  children.  But  we  can- 
not go  down.  Clothes  forbid.  In  one's  best 
clothes  it  is  not  possible  to  get  below  the  surface, 
either  of  nature  or  human  nature.  Fine  togs 
repel  all  confidences.  If  one  wears  them,  she 
must  suffer  the  consequences  and  be  content  to 
stay  at  the  top  of  things. 

When  you  can  bring  yourself  to  leave  the  gar- 
den, you  will  need  bodily  refreshment,  and  in 
Highland  Park  it  may  be  found  to  suit  any  taste 
or  purse. 

And  now,  after  luncheon,  I  will  disclose  the 
reason  why  you  made  this  a  civilized  trip, 
when  the  wild  scramble  down  the  ravine  bot- 
tom and  out  on  the  beach  is  so  much  more  fun. 
It  was  because  you  were  going  to  the  concert  in 
the  woods;  for  not  far  away,  in  a  pavilion  built 
among  the  trees,  a  treat  is  in  store. 

We  have  chosen  the  afternoon  of  children's 
day. 

The  children,  big  an^  little,  come  in  droves 
from  their  summer  homes  in  the  towns  about,  for 
there  is  nothing  to  pay ;  with  their  mothers  or  with- 
out, with  hats  or  without,  with  stockings  or  with- 
out, plainly  dressed  or  elegantly  dressed,  under- 


RA  VINA  147 

dressed  or  overdressed,  but  all  so  happy  and  so  at 
ease  that  to  us  at  least,  the  children  make  half  the 
pleasure  of  the  concert ;  especially  quaint,  fat,  pic- 
ture-book Betty,  aged  three,  who  sat  next  us,  and 
whom  we  love,  though  we  never  saw  her  before 
or  since. 

The  children  delight  the  leader  too.  He  keeps 
one  eye  on  the  orchestra,  and  the  other  eye  and 
a  continuous  smile  on  the  little  ones  bunched 
in  the  front  seats.  The  orchestra  plays  to  them 
and  for  them  and  their  presence  keeps  the  music 
from  being  too  heavy  for  the  non-elect  like  me. 

There  is  an  indescribable  charm  in  these  con- 
certs in  the  woods,  this  blending  of  art  and  nature, 
and  when  the  orchestra  plays  Mendelssohn's 
Spring  Song,  one's  nerves  fairly  tingle  with  joy 
as  he  hears  the  bursting  of  buds  and  opening  of 
leaves  and  the  low  sound  of  the  roots  struggling 
underground.  Birds  perch  on  the  branches  and 
trill  and  twitter.  Far  away,  a  coachman  is  driving 
slowly  up  and  down  among  the  carriages  and 
automobiles.  A  white-robed  mother  is  leading 
her  restless  little  one  by  the  hand,  off  among  the 
trees.  A  pair  of  strolling  lovers  disappear  down 
the  green  arched  roadway  singing  their  own  Spring 
Song.  And  these  gentle  movements  only  add  to 
the  feeling  of  quiet  and  repose. 


148 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


The  music  stops.  The  musicians  put  away 
their  instruments.  The  audience  rises  and  moves 
away  in  various  directions.  There  is  no  hurry, 
no  crowding,  nothing  to  break  the  music's  spell 
as  you  linger  about;  and  by  and  by,  when  most 
have  gone,  you  take  your  homeward  way,  fresh 
as  the  morning,  peaceful  as  the  evening,  thor- 
oughly content  with  a  lovely  day — even  a  day  in 
the  Forest  of  Arden. 


I .        .      . 


DUNE  PARK 

WE  are  hungry  for  sand  and  we  are 
watching  the  weather.  When  the  rain 
storm  has  passed  and  the  north  winds 
are  blowing  at  its  back,  there  will  come  our 
glorious  blue  days,  and  then  we  are  going 
to  Dune  Park.  We  must  wear  our  shortest 
skirts  and  our  highest  boots,  and  take  a  trav- 
eler's lunch,  light,  but  satisfying  and  plentiful, 
for  we  start  at  six  and  return  at  eight.  And 
we  must  have  the  company  of  good  friends,  for  it 
is  to  be  a  day  in  a  complete  wilderness. 

At  Dune  Park  the  train  sets  us  down  among 
box  cars,  loaded  from  the  dunes  themselves,  for 
even  they  are  marketable.  The  station  keeper's 
gaze  follows  us  wonderingly  as  we  move  off  through 
the  woods  toward  the  steep  lee  slopes  of  sun-burned 
sand.  Chicago's  youthful  spirit  of  hurry  is  with  us 
yet,  and  we  pant  upward.  But  on  reaching  the  top 


152 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


all  out  of  breath,  we  pause  to  reflect  that  there  is 
nothing  to  do  and  the  livelong  day  to  do  it  in, 
and  so  we  sit  down  to  rest  in  the  sweep  of  the 
wind,  while  the  children,  wild  with  delight,  run 


screaming   down   with   giant   strides,    and   then 
struggle  up  the  slipping  sand  again. 

Over  the  crest  of  the  dune  we  are  lost  in  a 
waste  of  sunlit  yellow  billows  and  shadowy  green 
troughs,  sombered  here  and  there  by  what  was 


DUNE  PARK  153 

once  a  pine  forest,  standing  stark  and  bare  as  it 
emerges  from  its  long  burial  in  the  devouring 
sand,  the  polished  trunks  still  erect  and  unyield- 
ing ;  ghostly  skeletons  of  proud  forest  kings. 

I  push  eagerly  on,  for  at  the  top  oi  an  especially 
high  wave  I  shall  find  what  I  came  for,  the  won- 
derful clear  color  panorama  of  the  blue  water  of 
the  lake,  the  tawny  hills  of  sand,  and  the  blue 
sky  over  all.  There  may  be  white  caps  on  the 
lake  and  white  clouds  in  the  sky.  Other  color 
there  is  none.  The  blue  is  so  intense  and  vivid 
that  by  its  very  purity  it  grasps  you  and  lifts 
you  up,  out  of  yourself. 

I  have  taken  artist  friends  to  see,  but  in  vain. 
They  do  not  paint  it;  they  do  not  seem  to  see  it. 
They  want  "atmosphere"  where  there  is  nothing 
but  pure  clear  air,  and  they  give  me  curious 
gray-green  things  when  I  want  tawny  yellow  and 
brilliant  blue.  Vereshchagin  has  painted  such 
things  right.  I  do  not  know  who  else  has.  My 
artist  friends  have  not.  I  am  resolved  to  do  it 
myself  some  day,  though  I  know  not  brush  or 
colors.  It  will  be  poster  style,  just  blue  and 
yellow  splashes,  but  it  will  be  truer  than  theirs. 

I  always  stop  here  and  let  the  picture  sink 
through  my  eyes  into  my  brain.  Some  tired  day 
next  winter  when  the  child-garden  seems  chiefly 


154  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

weeds  and  nettles,  this  pure,  cool,  lovely  land- 
scape will  come  to  me,  and  the  fresh  clean  wind 
will  blow  courage  into  my  soul. 

The  beach  invites  our  thirsty  company.  A 
little  well  is  dug  just  at  the  water's  edge  and  each 
dry  throat  is  satisfied.  Then  the  big  boy  and 
his  chums  suddenly  disappear  behind  a  distant 
dune  to  do  the  thing  that  any  proper  man  would 
rather  do  than  eat — take  a  swim.  Instantly  we  are 
barefooted  and  running  in  the  other  direction 
along  the  hard  smooth  beach  just  on  the  wet 
side  of  the  wave  marks.  Far  we  go,  scaring  a 
leggy  little  sandpiper  nearly  to  death,  and  then 
we  throw  ourselves  down  in  the  shadow  of  a  hill 
to  burrow  in  the  warm  sand  and  watch  the  queer 
little  sand-spiders  burrowing  too.  When  the 
boys  appear  around  the  curve  we  decorously 
return.  Quickly  the  lunch  is  out  and  con- 
sumed, except  what  is  prudently  withheld  for 
supper-time. 

In  the  autumn,  the  tangles  of  wild  grape-vines 
among  the  dunes  will  be  heavy  with  spicy  flavor. 
You  will  eat  the  grapes  to  your  heart's  content, 
and  you  will  carry  back  your  pails  and  baskets 
full,  for  all  the  aroma  of  this  beautiful  day  will 
be  in  each  glass  of  the  jelly  that  Mother  will 
make. 


DUNE  PARK 


157 


In  the  hollow  behind  the  highest  dune  the 
bitter-sweet  grows.  The  place  is  hard  to  reach, 
but  the  big  boy  and  the  o.  m.  can  get  to  it — and 


it  is  worth  the  effort,  for  we  could  never  start  in 
on  a  winter  without  bitter-sweet.  Its  berries  will 
open  in  the  cozy  warmth  of  the  autumn  fires  and 
disclose  the  precious  coral  ball  in  its  golden 
saucer. 


158  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

Back  where  the  sand  does  not  obey  the  wind 
so  well,  there  are  rush-bordered  sloughs  between 
the  dunes  that  invite  one  at  any  season.  In  July 
the  water  in  the  middle  is  starred  with  pond- 
lilies,  and  in  grape  time  you  can  gather  exquisite 
blue  fringed  gentians  around  the  edges. 
I  worked  very  hard  in  a  child-garden  in  a 
thickly  crowded  part  of  the  city  one  warm  summer. 
Perhaps  the  only  thing  I  did  worth  while  was  to 
take  flowers  and  give  them  to  the  children — pan- 
sies  and  sweet-peas  and  field  lilies  and  daisies.  I 
shall  never  forget  the  look  of  hushed  awe  and 
reverence  when  I  distributed  water-lilies  and 
the  tenderness  with  which  the  children  carried 
them  away.  Sedor  begged  for  two — he  told  me 
why.  He  was  never  bad  after  that. 

It  seemed  a  garden  in  the  mire.  But  the  lilies 
gave  me  hope.  ''Beautiful  lives  have  sprung  up 
in  the  darkest  places,  as  pure  white  lilies  full  of 
fragrance  have  blossomed  on  stagnant  waters." 
Ah!  I  know  whereof  I  speak.  Out  of  what 
seemed  hopelessly  dark,  noisome  pools,  have 
grown  some  of  the  whitest,  purest  lilies  of  my 
child-garden.  Some  day  I  will  tell  you  about 
Emma. 

Still  farther  back  from  the  lake  are  undrained 
swamps  on  whose  edges  you  may  find  fairy 


DUNE  PARK  159 

lady-slippers,  and  in  the  clear  black  water,  un- 
canny sun-dews  and  fat  pitcher-plants  digesting 
their  insect  dinners. 

One  spring  day  when  we  ranged  the  dunes 
with  our  botanist  friend,  we  found  almost  under 
the  clumps  of  blue-berried  juniper,  the  trailing 
arbutus,  and  in  one  little  spot  he  reverently 
showed  us  linnaea,  the  low  fragrant  arctic  flower 
which  the  great  Swedish  botanist  chose  to  bear 
his  name. 

We  must  turn  our  faces  back  toward  the  rail- 
road early,  for  once  out  of  sight  of  the  lake  it  is 
easy  to  lose  one's  way  and  we  may  have  a  long 
walk  to  the  station.  To  miss  the  train  would  mean 
to  spend  the  night  in  Dune  Park — goodness 
knows  how.  We  are  going  to  camp  for  a  week 
in  the  dunes,  but  until  then  we  do  not  wish  night 
to  overtake  us  there. 

Laden  with  whatever  harmless  booty  the  sea- 
son yields,  sunburned  and  weary  of  foot,  we  take 
the  train  for  our  long  ride  home. 

As  we  walk  through  the  streets  to  our  trolley 
car,  we  see  many  a  dull  eye  brighten,  and  many  a 
hard  face  soften  into  a  smile  at  the  sight  of  our 
load. 

We  are  better  in  body  and  in  soul,  as  we  come 
trailing  some  little  clouds  of  glory  back  to  our 


i6o 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


home  in  the  breeze-swept  city  by  the  lake.  We 
sleep  long  and  well,  and  for  days  we  are  cheered 
by  visions  of  yellow  and  blue  as  we  shake  lurking 
sand  grains  from  our  shoes  and  our  clothes ;  clean, 
clear  sand  that  every  human  being  loves. 


SOUTH  SHORE 

WHAT  shall  we  do  now  that  South  Shore  is 
gone,  gone  the  way  of  all  our  lake  shore, 
gone  to  destruction  say  we,  to  improve- 
ment say  the  property  owners? 

What  shall  we  do  the  long  seasons  to  come 
without  this  place  to  which  we  can  hie  in  a  few 
minutes  for  a  few  minutes  and  back  before  any 
one  misses  us?  And  when  the  barbarian  gets 
strong  within  us,  where  are  we  to  go  for  beach 
fires  and  com  roasts?  Peace  to  the  ashes  of 
many  such,  and  a  requiem  to  our  beloved  South 
Shore,  the  last  bit  of  natural  beach  in  all  our 
miles  of  south  side  water  front. 

For  years  now  there  has  been  no  other  spot 
where  one  might  dip  into  the  water  except  in 
the  presence  of  coarse  and  curious  crowds. 

Once  there  was  a  bathhouse  at  South  Shore, 
little  patronized  by  the  general,  but  well  known 
163 


164 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


to  the  few;  and  here  we  came  in  jovial  companies 
when  the  east  wind  blew,  to  jump  the  waves  in 


the  surf  and  to  run  on  the  long  hard  beach.  The 
bathhouse  went  long  ago,  and  we  raged.  But 
the  memories  of  the  cool  water  still  refresh  us. 


SOUTH  SHORE  165 

After  that,  the  boys  found  a  refuge  in  the  bushes, 
and  on  warm  days  appeared  in  the  water  as 
by  magic.  A  low  gravel  ridge,  undercut  by  the 
storm  waves,  rose  from  the  narrow  beach.  It 
was  covered  with  scraggy  oaks  overgrown  with 
entangling  vines,  and  here,  cold  from  our  bath- 
ing, we  used  to  pile  up  drift-wood  and  brush,  and 
in  the  grateful  blaze  of  our  crackling  fire  come 
back  to  summer. 

Then  we  boiled  our  coffee  and  roasted  our 
corn,  gotten,  for  a  price,  fresh  off  the  stalk  from  the 
green  garden  acres  to  the  west.  We  burned  it 
of  course,  but  it  tasted  the  better.  We  burned 
our  faces  too,  but  never  did  we  mind ! 

On  gala  occasions,  such  as  the  big  boy's  birth- 
day, which  we  always  celebrated  here,  marsh- 
mallows  were  added  to  the  menu,  to  be  roasted 
on  sharpened  sticks  to  a  fine  brown,  and  taken 
off  in  one  melting  ambrosial  mouthful. 

The  need  of  water  for  our  coffee  or  to  quench 
our  marsh -mallow  thirst  would  give  us  our  old 
glad  excuse  for  going  to  hear  the  parrot  talk 
German,  to  our  never-failing  merriment.  It  is 
really  nothing  surprising  that  a  German's  parrot 
should  talk  German — but  to  hear  it  affected  us 
almost  to  tears.  So  we  filed  in  procession,  pails 
in  hand,  through  the  back  gate  of  the  tall  blank 


i66  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

board  fence,  for  it  is  guiltless  of  opening  at  the 
front,  to  the  neatly  kept  house  inside.  Then 
the  kindly  German  woman  who  presides  over  all, 
having  proudly  shown  us  the  fussy  little  garden 
with  its  rustic  bridge  and  its  grape  arbor,  and 
having  sat  the  big  little  girl  in  the  big  swing, 
escorted  us  to  the  well.  And  we  listened  to  the 
parrot  talking  German! 

We  were  so  glad  this  house  was  here,  and 
we  were  so  glad  there  were  no  more! 

Our  familiar  unspoiled  spot  at  South  Shore 
seemed  better  than  any  other  to  us,  for  we  knew 
it  best,  in  all  its  changing  phases,  and  here  alone 
have  the  children  followed  the  march  of  the 
seasons  through. 

In  earliest  spring,  when  the  first  warm  sun 
came,  even  while  the  wind  was  still  keen  from 
the  cold  blue  lake,  the  brave  pussy  willows 
showed  their  snowy  cotton  tufts,  and  the  fur- 
coated  mullen  leaves  stuck  their  tips  through  the 
ground,  while  flocks  of  gray  j uncos  spread  their 
white  tail  feathers  as  they  skimmed  over  last  No- 
vember's leaves,  and  blue  birds,  like  animated  bits 
detached  from  the  sky,  flitted  and  sang  among 
the  leafless  branches  of  the  oaks  amid  a  chorus 
of  other  birds  that  we  know  not,  while  in  the  low 
places  the  awakening  frogs  lent  their  vocal  aid. 


SOUTH  SHORE 


167 


When  w£  went  a  little  later,  we  climbed  the 
fence  and  crossed  the  field  between  the  railroad 
and  the  beach,  to  find  the  blue  fallen  to  the 
ground  in  the 
shape  of  myriads 
of  violets,  and 
still  later  to  find 
it  caught  in  the 
border  of  stately 
iris  that  grew 
among  the  ferns 
around  the  wet 
spot  just  back 
of  the  low  ridge. 

South  Shore 
had  its  seasons 
of  pink  as  well 
as  blue.  In 
May,  the  low- 
growing  crab- 
apple  trees  on 
the  ridge  were 
mounds  of 
beauty.  A  little 
later,  we  deserted 
the  field  for  the  path  along  the  road,  bordered 
thick  with  wild  roses.  In  mid-summer  the  aris- 


1 68  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

tocratic  pink  deepened  into  the  red  of 'the  buxom 
phlox  and  milkweed,  and  as  the  autumn  came, 
the  golden-rod  brought  its  wealth  to  pay  for  the 
season's  beauty. 

Now,  we  took  to  the  field  again,  scaring  up 
flocks  of  meadow-larks  as  we  went.  Their  notes 
came  out  clearer  and  sweeter  now  that  the  fall 
was  at  hand,  and  their  "Spring-o'-the-year" 
ranked  them  with  the  prophets. 

Then  the  rabbits  showed  their  cotton  tails 
oftener  as  we  crossed  our  field,  the  leaves  grew 
russet  and  brown,  and  we  went  no  more  to  South 
Shore. 

At  last,  one  winter's  night  the  snow  covered  it 
all,  and  for  us,  for  alway;  and  only  the  sturdy 
blue  jay  now  keeps  watch  until — until  the  hated 
clubhouse  opens  in  the  spring ! 


"Through  the  splendor  of  autumn  woods" 


PALOS  PARK 

AND  last  of  all,  in  October,  with  the  red 
sun   shining  and  the   cool  wind  blow- 
ing, go  again  to  Palos  Park.     Gather 
up  a  neighborhood  party,  old  and  young,  good 
and  bad.     Long  will  the  memory  of  such  a  party 
be  in  my  heart. 

A  farmer's  man  was  to  meet  us  with  a  hayrack, 
and  drive  us  about.  What  did  meet  us  was  a 
god,  a  red  and  bronze  son  of  Italy,  tall,  erect, 
perfect  featured,  a  very  god  of  the  harvest.  And 
he  came  in  a  chariot,  decked  with  green  and 
scarlet  and  gold  of  leaves  and  berries  and  vines. 
Seats  were  in  the  chariot  fit  for  kings'  thrones,  so 
gloriously  were  they  bedecked.  Like  a  gracious, 
smiling  god  did  he  help  us  in  and  bear  us  away 
through  the  splendor  of  autumn  woods,  to  the 
spring  whose  waters  we  quaffed,  to  hilltops 
whence  we  looked  westward  over  valleys  that 
were  seas  of  gorgeous  color,  and  through  cool 
roads  along  the  winding  creek. 
171 


172 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


Our  bags  were  filled  with  nuts  from  the  tall 
hickory  and  walnut  trees,  and  as  the  great  sun 
began  to  decline  we  found  a  grassy  opening 
among  the  trees  by  a  quiet  road.  Baskets  were 
opened,  a  fire  was  lighted,  and  in  the  gathering 
twilight,  with  the  cold  evening  wind  rising,  we 


ate,  half-hungrily,  half-worshipfully.  The  chil- 
dren frisked  about  the  fire,  roasting  red-hots, 
(save  the  mark !)  and  all  supremely  happy. 

Then  in  the  dusk  we  gathered  the  fragments, 
offered  them  up  in  one  blaze  of  red  and  yellow 
flame,  and  sought  again  our  god  of  the  autumn. 
In  the  west  the  evening  star  glowed  alone.  In 
the  east  the  harvest  moon  rose  full  and  yellow. 
And  between  them  we  were  driven  back  the  long 


PA  LOS  PARK 


173 


road  to  the  station,  making  the  sweet  night  air 
merry  with  songs.  All  the  children  were  good. 
How  could  it  be  otherwise? 

Our  god  deposited  us  at  the  station,  filling  our 
arms  with  the  chariot's  adornings. 

In  my  little  best  room  I  have  them  yet,  ex 
quisitely  tinted  old-rose  oak  leaves,  and  as  I  look 
at  them  I  whisper  to  myself,  "Et  ego  in  Arcadia." 
I,  too,  have  been  in  Arcadia. 


THE  SEASON  OF  FLOWERS 

THIS    summer    you    have   been    our  guest; 
we  have  taken  you  with  us  and  shown 
you  the  way   you  should    go.     But   you 
must  know  your  lesson  well,  for  next  season  you 
are  to  go  forth  alone,  to  preach  the  saving  gospel 
of  out-of-doors  to  your  family  and  your  friends 
and  your  friends'  friends  to  the  third  generation. 
For  Mother  and  I  have  missionary  zeal. 

Now,  the  only  thing  the  o.  m.  claims  to  know 
even  a  little,  is  how  to  cultivate  a  child-garden, 
and  her  main  implement  is  repetition,  strategic 
repetition.  A  theme  with  variations  is  her  way; 
for  children  as  well  as  men  "must  be  taught  as 
though  you  taught  them  not." 
177 


178  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

This  particular  variation  she  calls — The  Season 
of  Flowers. 

If  there  are  those  in  your  family  who  lack 
strength  of  spirit  or  of  body  to  go  to  the  wild 
flowers,  do  you  bring  the  flowers  to  them  and 
keep  the  house  sweet  and  beautiful  from  early 
April  to  late  October.  A  few  hours  on  Saturday 
afternoon  or,  better  yet,  early  Sunday  morning 
will  bring  joy  to  dozens  who  see  your  trophies, 
and  much  greater  joy  to  you  who  gather  them; 
for  of  flowers  more  than  of  any  other  thing  in 
the  world  is  it  true  that  it  is  better  to  give  than 
to  receive. 

But  there  are  flowers  to  be  picked,  and  flowers 
not  to  be  picked,  and  before  you  can  go  with  us 
you  must  be  carefully  instructed  in  this  matter, 
else  our  present  wrath  will  fall  upon  your  head, 
and  your  own  future  conscience  will  smite 
you  for  your  thoughtlessness,  even  as  the  o.  m.'s 
sometimes  smites  her  now.  Moreover,  there  are 
flowers  of  which  one  may  pick  armfuls,  and 
others  of  which  a  handful  is  better,  and  still  others 
of  which  a  single  blossom  is  the  limit  of  propriety ; 
and  there  are  flowers  to  be  picked  in  full  bloom, 
and  flowers  to  be  picked  in  the  bud,  and  flowers 
to  be  taken  roots  and  all.  And  there  is  art  in 
knowing  the  best  length  of  stem,  and  the  right 


THE  SEASON  OF  FLOWERS  179 

amount  of  foliage;  and  there  is  the  important 
first  lesson  of  picking  one  kind  at  a  time.  Oh, 
the  hopeless  flower  mixtures  that  one  sees ! 

And  always  know  that  the  best  of  your  trip 
is  what  you  can  bring  back  only  in  your  memory ; 
the  picture  of  the  flowers  where  God  meant  them 
to  be,  in  their  settings  of  meadow  or  prairie  or 
woodland.  We  have  little  patience  with  our 
friends  whose  first  instinct  is  for  possession,  and 
who  instantly  fall  to  picking  and  digging,  as  soon 
as  their  feet  strike  soft  earth. 

If  picking  flowers  is  a  great  art,  arranging  them 
is  a  greater.  Ask  the  Japanese.  But  there  is 
safety  in  the  rule — keep  to  one  kind  at  a  time. 
When  you  come  with  us  you  are  not  to  violate  it. 

Thus  instructed,  we  will  take  you  first  for 
the  hepaticas  that  early  April  finds  peeping  out 
on  the  northward  slopes  of  the  ravines  on  the 
north  shore.  Lakeside  or  Winnetka  or  Glencoe 
will  be  the  place.  You  may  bring  a  shoe  box  or 
a  tin  cracker  box,  for  you  are  to  take  some  home, 
a  blue  and  a  white  and  a  pink-tinted  one  per- 
haps, and  these  with  their  roots  and  much  ad- 
hering leaf  mold.  You  must  never  pick  the  blos- 
soms. They  will  only  droop  and  wither  miser- 
ably and  to  no  purpose. 

When  you  have  your  plants  home,  put  them 


i8o  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

in  low  pots  with  their  own  woods  earth,  and  cover 
the  pots  with  crape  paper  of  the  same  shade  as 
the  blossoms,  and  you  will  have  prepared  your 
sweetest  Easter  gifts.  Choose  the  recipients  with 
care,  and  admonish  them  to  plant  the  hepaticas, 
when  they  have  done  blooming,  in  a  sheltered  corner 
of  the  lawn  near  the  front  fence;  and  next  spring, 
and  many  succeeding  springs,  every  passer-by  who 
has  known  the  country  life,  but  especially  the 
old  people,  will  cry  out  at  sight  of  them,  and  lean 
over  the  fence  to  gaze  at  their  soft-tinted,  waving 
petals,  first  harbingers  of  spring,  and  talk  to  the 
children  about  them,  and  go  away  smiling  and 
reminiscent. 

In  the  ravines  with  the  hepaticas,  but  on  the 
warmer  south  slopes  you  will  find  dancing 
anemones,  sweet,  fragile  and  unpickable.  Let 
them  alone. 

By  the  time  the  hepaticas  are  gone  to  sleep 
the  violets  will  be  up  in  the  woods  along  the 
Desplaines  and  at  Beverly  Hills,  and  a  little 
later  in  the  ravines  to  the  north,  and  later  still 
the  Flossmoor  woods  and  Stewart  Ridge  will 
be  blue  with  them. 

Take  a  few  of  the  roots  and  do  as  you  did  with 
the  hepaticas,  and  also  pick  many  bunches  of 
blossoms,  mixed  plentifully  with  their  own  green 


THE  SEASON  OF  FLOWERS 


183 


leaves.  You  need  not  fear  that  you  will  exter- 
minate them.  Next  spring  there  will  be  just 
as  many,  and  plenty  for  all  who  come.  And  take 
all  the  children  you  know  with  you,  lest  one  of 


them  should  ever  send  a  pang  to  your  heart  by 
saying,  as  a  sweet  city  child  of  fourteen  once 
said  to  me  very  wistfully,  "But,  Miss  Emily,  I 
never  saw  violets  growing." 

The  most  beautiful  of  the  flowers  in  the  ra- 


184 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


vines  is  the  great  white  trillium,  tall  and  spot- 
less in  a  circle  of  its  own  green  leaves;  but 
of  these  you  must  never  take  but  a  handful, 


and  a  very  small  handful  at  that,  for  they  are 
sadly  diminishing  year  by  year,  as  the  city  reaches 
farther  and  farther  out.  Best  of  all,  take  just 
one  apiece  to  those  at  home,  and  put  each  in  a 
tall  clear  glass  vase ;  and  for  yourself,  enjoy  them 


THE  SEASON  OF  FLOWERS  185 

where  they  stand  fluttering  beside  the  waxy 
May-apples,  in  the  misty  green  of  the  maiden-hair 
and  meadow  rue  on  the  cool  shadowy  slopes. 

As  I  read  my  new  seed  catalogue  lately,  I  was 
delighted  to  find  that  the  white  trillium  is  being 
domesticated,  and  that  the  plants  can  be  bought. 
I  wonder  if,  treated  as  a  garden  pet,  it  can  ever 
be  quite  its  own  wild  shy  self. 

While  the  trillium  is  being  threatened  with 
extinction  on  the  north  shore,  the  blushing 
arbutus  and  the  rare  sweet  linnaea  on  the  dunes 
are  safe,  because  it  takes  long  and  patient  search 
to  find  them,  and  he  who  will  take  that  trouble, 
loves  them  too  well  to  harm  them. 

In  mid-May,  the  wild  crab-apple  blossoms  be- 
gin to  open,  and  it  is  best  to  gather  the  branches 
that  are  in  bud,  and  let  them  spread  their  petals 
in  water,  for  the  flowers  are  too  frail  to  transport. 
You  can  find  them  in  many  places:  at  Sag  back 
of  the  churchyard,  along  Western  avenue  between 
Tracy  and  Morgan  Park,  at  Glencoe  and 
Ravinia,  at  River  Forest,  and  best  of  all  at  Palos 
Park,  where  on  every  hand  great  pink  thickets 
brighten  the  fresh  young  green  of  the  landscape. 
Indeed,  if  you  have  not  seen  Palos  Park  in  crab- 
apple  week  you  have  missed  the  loveliest  sight 
that  Nature  spreads  for  you  the  whole  round  year. 


1 86  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

And,  moreover,  you  have  no  excuse,  for  a  few 
hours  are  enough,  and  you  could  find  the  time 
somewhere  in  that  beautiful  week. 

June  will  bring  the  climax  of  the  early  and 
delicate  blossoms  in  the  shape  of  the  roses  that 


bloom  all  about  on  the  railroad  embankments 
everywhere.  They  too  must  be  picked  in  the 
bud,  with  plenty  of  leaves,  and  put,  just  a  few 
together,  in  finger  bowls,  so  that  the  leaves  and 
stems  may  show  through  the  clear  glass.  Their 
delicate  color  and  matchless  perfume  will  make 
the  whole  house  glad. 


THE  SEASON  OF  FLOWERS  187 

After  the  roses  comes  the  mid-summer  carnival 
of  less  exquisite  but  stronger,  more  decorative 
and  more  abundant  flowers;  but  there  are  many 
that  make  the  fields  and  roadsides  showy,  and 
yet  are  useless  for  bouquets,  such  as  the  red 
phlox,  the  puccoons  and  the  lupines,  for  when 
picked  they  shed  their  corollas  in  deep  dejection. 
The  shooting-stars  and  gaudy  painted-cups 
that  are  so  effective  in  masses  in  the  fields,  are 
not  strong  enough  in  texture  or  color  to  be  useful. 
Even  the  blue  iris,  the  haughty  fleur-de-lis,  be- 
comes a  mass  of  corruption  when  cut  and  in 
water.  I  used  to  class  the  blue  vervain  of  the 
vacant  lots  with  the  unpickables,  but  I  know 
better  now.  If  you  put  the  stems  immediately 
into  water,  it  will  hold  its  erect  freshness  and 
make  a  charming  table  decoration. 

Our  favorite  flowers  for  decorating  house  or 
church  or  child-garden  are  the  large  white  golden- 
eyed  daisies.  You  can  take  them  by  the  arm 
load  and  wagon  load  and  no  one  misses  them, 
and  next  year  you  can  take  just  as  many  more. 
They  grow  at  Tracy,  Homewood,  Willow  Springs 
and  out  the  "Archey  Road";  but  this  last  place 
I  will  not  locate,  for  they  are  on  the  land  of  an 
irate  foreigner  who  is  likely  to  shoot  you  for 
trespassing.  The  daisies  are  killing  out  his 


1 88 


ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 


timothy,  and  the  people  who  come  for  the  daisies 
are  spoiling  what  is  left.  So,  though  they  are 
a  little  later  at  Tracy,  you  must  wait.  They 
always  come  before  the  child-garden  is  scattered 
for  the  summer,  and  the  garden  is  always  taken 
out  to  them  and  they  are  always  brought  in  to 
the  garden. 

As  you  get  off  the  train  at  Tracy,  look  back 


along  the  track.  A  florist  has  his  farm  here, 
and  at  the  beginning  of  daisy  time  his  acres  of 
rose-scented  peonies  are  in  full  bloom,  a  gorgeous 
sight  to  see.  Then  go  westward  past  the  florist's 
house  garden,  where  you  may  look  over  the  fence 
at  rare  iris  and  pansies  and  what-not,  and  to  the 


THE  SEASON  OF  FLOWERS  189 

top  of  the  "hill,"  the  long  ridge  that  extends 
from  Beverly  Hills  to  Blue  Island,  and  which 
yields  the  same  harvest  at  many  points. 

A  sunny  Sunday  morning  in  the  daisy-patch 
is  not  to  be  forgotten.  You  must  take  shears  or 
a  strong  knife,  for  the  stems  are  tough,  and  you 
want  so  many;  and  you  will  need  strings  to  tie 
the  daisies  in  tight  bunches,  so  that  you  may  carry 
the  more.  And  for  a  while  you  stoop  to  cut  them, 
and  then  you  just  sit  down  where  they  are  thickest 
and  pick  around  you.  It  is  beautiful  to  see  the  big 
little  girl  sitting  so,  almost  buried  in  the  tall 
daisies,  the  white  ribbon  on  her  top-knot 
making  her  look  like  a  larger  blossom  as  she 
bends  over  her  lapful  to  tie  them  up.  The  west 
wind  sways  the  flowers  and  the  ribbon.  The 
great  feather-bed  clouds  sail  past,  miles  above 
you  in  the  clear  blue  sky.  Only  the  distant 
sounds^  from  the  early  golfers  break  the  Sabbath 
stillness. 

As  you  go  back  you  will  find  a  few  wild  straw- 
berries under  the  edge  of  the  sidewalk,  just 
enough  to  remind  you  what  nectar  is. 

You  have  had  such  a  season  of  refreshment 
that  you  find  yourself  pitying  the  church-goers 
whom  you  fall  in  with  on  your  way  home. 

When  you  have  eaten  the  dinner  that  has  been 


1 90  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

preparing  itself  while  you  have  been  gone,  if 
you  have  learned  the  gentle  art  of  fireless  cooking, 
you  will  fit  your  pieces  of  wire  screening  into 
your  bowls  and  pitchers  to  make  each  daisy 
stand  up  free  and  independent,  just  as  it  grew. 
You  can  put  some  in  everything  you  have  that 
will  hold  water,  but  always  very  loosely  dis- 
posed, and  have  plenty  left  to  give  to  your  neigh- 
bors, and  for  a  week  or  two  your  house  will  be  a 
bower  of  beauty.  And  if  you  like,  and  we  al- 
ways do  like,  by  going  several  times  you  can 
have  a  continuous  "daisy-fest"  of  a  month  at 
least. 

With  the  daisies  comes  vacation,  and  then 
we  can  range  farther  and  oftener.  Now  and 
then  toward  the  end  of  daisy  time  we  happen 
upon  a  lily  near  the  daisy  haunts,  but  to  find 
them1  in  abundance  we  must  go  across  the  ridge 
and  into  the  low  fields  on  the  western  side. .  And 
how  abundant  they  are!  Dozens  and  scores  of 
them !  They  are  the  gorgeous,  red,  spotted  lilies, 
like  the  tiger  lilies  of  the  garden,  but  brighter; 
those  that  I  always  see  when  I  hear  "Consider 
the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  they  grow." 

Pick  them  with  long  stems  and  be  careful  not 
to  stain  your  garments  with  the  deep  brown  pollen 
that  the  swaying  stamens  will  dust  over  you 


May-apples  in  the  misty  green  of  meadow-rue 


THE  SEASON  OP  FLOWERS  193 

as  impartially  as  over  the  bills  of  the  iridescent 
mites  of  humming  birds  that  sometimes  hover 
over  them,  almost  while  you  pick,  to  take  their 
last  sip  of  sweetness  from  the  lily's  deep  narrow 
throat. 

The  pavement  dwellers  that  meet  you  return- 
ing will  never  suspect  or  believe  that  you  are 
carrying  wild  flowers. 

The  lilies  grow  also  in  the  moist  places  along 
the  railroad  between  Glencoe  and  Ravinia,  in 
the  open  fields  at  Clyde  and  Berwyn,  and  prob- 
ably at  many  points  between  the  western  edge 
of  the  city  and  the  Desplaines  river. 

The  field  lilies  yield  the  palm  but  to  the  most 
magnificent  of  all  America's  native  flowers,  the 
pink  lady-slipper,  and  her  attractive  but  shyer 
cousins  in  yellow.  The  pink  slippers  are  full 
two  inches  long  and  marvelously  beautiful  in 
form  and  tints.  Years  ago  they  grew  thickest 
where  East  Chicago  now  is,  and  once  I  stood 
on  a  low  sand  ridge  and  counted  more  than  two 
hundred  bordering  a  swampy  spot.  They  tossed, 
proud  and  free  in  the  full  sunshine,  at  the  top  of 
their  tall,  straight  stalks,  yet  I  picked  them  down 
to  the  ground,  all  I  could  carry,  and  they  made 
my  neighbors  and  my  child-garden  glad.  Now  I 
would  not  harm  one  on  any  account.  I  am 


J94  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

more  civilized  than  I  was,  but  that  does  not  bring 
back  the  vanished  orchids. 

I  will  only  whisper  to  you,  very  privately,  when 
and  where  they  bloom,  for  now  one  is  rarely 
seen,  save  in  the  clutch  of  some  ruthless  picnicker 
who  has  found  and  beheaded  one  of  them,  and  in 
whose  careless  hand  it  hangs  limp  and  pathetic. 

After  the  lilies  are  faded  comes  a  long  glory  of 
yellow !  Plebeian  sunflowers  from  the  fields  that 
any  trolley  line  reaches,  and  more  plebeian  and 
plentiful  black-eyed-Susans,  coarse  and  common, 
but  yielding  place  to  none  in  decorative  beauty. 
And  then,  in  August,  come  the  royal  golden-rod, 
and  the  royal  asters  of  all  shades  from  white 
through  lavender  to  deepest  purple.  You  can 
go  in  any  direction  for  them,  but  they  seem  purest 
in  their  coloring  and  most  free  from  dust  in  the 
uplands  between  the  ravines  to  the  north.  And 
for  once  you  may  mix  your  flowers-  at  random, 
for  the  golden-rod  and  the  asters  never  quarrel 
with  one  another,  no  matter  what  tints  you  find. 
Arm  loads  are  in  order !  Pick  the  stems  very  long. 
Choose  particularly  the  more  plume-like  golden- 
rods  and  the  lighter  shades  of  asters,  and  put 
the  bunches  just  as  you  gathered  them  into  tall, 
wide-mouthed  jars  and  pitchers. 

As  you  garner  your  gold  and  purple,  the  sumach 


THE  SEASON  OF  FLOWERS  195 

thickets  turning  crimson  in  the  first  frosts  will 
warn  you  that  you  must  be  thinking  of  your 
winter  stores.  Bitter-sweet  you  must  have,  and 
red  rose  hips,  and  the  sand  hills  of  Dune  Park 
"will  yield  both,  and  at  the  same  time  perhaps,  on 
the  edge  of  some  slough,  belated  fringed  gentians 
and  one  or  two  lonely  cardinal  flowers. 

So  late,  you  will  get  only  a  handful  of  the  pure 
deep-blue  gentians.  The  cardinals  you  will  take 
with  their  roots,  for  in  your  garden  they  will 
thrive  and  bloom  and  multiply,  and  their  intense 
glowing  color  will  be  many  seasons'  delight. 

You  will  make  one  more  trip  to  the  north 
shore  for  late  golden-rod  and  the  red  berries 
of  the  Solomon's  seal,  and  one  trip  to  Pullman 
for  some  of  the  cat-tails  that  are  filling  Calumet 
Lake. 

Our  brown  grasses  for  the  brown  vase  that 
would  be  nothing  without  them,  we  have  collected 
early  and  quite  incidentally  at  Morgan  Park. 

Thither  we  go  sometimes  for  an  hour  or  two, 
just  as  we  used  to  go  to  South  Shore,  for  Mother 
discovered  long  ago  a  charming  walk  that  takes 
us  all  in  a  minute  out  of  the  suburban  atmosphere 
into  the  real  country  air.  At  the  end  of  the  Mor- 
gan Park  trolley  line  a  path  leads  northward 
along  the  cemetery  into  a  veritable  country  road, 


1 96  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

with  a  farm  and  an  apple  orchard  on  one  side 
and  tangled  natural  woods  on  the  other. 

Sitting  by  the  farm  fence  in  the  shade  of  the 
apple  trees  we  eat  our  luncheon  and  are  indescrib- 
ably refreshed.  A  busy  red-headed  wood-pecker  is 
spiraling  around  the  trunk  of  a  gnarled  oak  tree  in 
the  woods  across  the  road.  Two  squawking  blue 
jays  are  quarrelling  in  another  tree  close  by; 
and  the  farmer's  dog  is  sniffing  uneasily  through 
the  fence. 

We  walk  on  to  the  north  and  east  through 
woods  and  fields  and  out  on  the  main  trolley 
line,  and  we  make  us  a  brown  bouquet 
as  we  go,  with  rose-brown  docks  and  yellow- 
brown  grasses. 

For  the  red-bronze  oak  branches  that  we  shall 
hang  in  the  dining  room,  and  arrange  in  our 
copper  bowls  for  Thanksgiving  time,  we  pay  a 
last  visit  to  Palos  Park  on  a  mellow  hazy  after- 
noon, bringing  back  arm  loads  of  branches  and 
heart  loads  of  thanksgiving  that  it  has  been  given 
to  us  to  know  and  love  God's  country,  and  that 
we  have  the  health  and  strength  to  gain  more 
health  and  strength  as  each  summer  season  adds 
to  our  soul's  stature. 


'On  a  mellow,  hazy  afternoon" 


GENTLE  reader,  the  summer  is  ended,  and 
the  autumn  far  advanced.  And  as  the 
season  has  ripened,  so  in  varying  degree 
have  we. 

The  big  little  girl  has  stretched  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  her  summer  frocks,  and  clamors  to 
have  her  hair  tied  up  and  hid  with  monster 
ribbon  bows.  The  big  boy  has  symptoms  of  the 
trying  time  when  he  will  roll  his  trousers  toward 
his  knees,  be  melancholy  and  "sporty"  by  turns, 
and  refer  to  himself  and  the  like  as  men.  But 
Mother  has  nursed  him  through  chicken-pox 
and  measles,  and  will  bring  him  safely  even  out 
of  this. 

Dear  Mother,  who  used  to  play  with  her  crow- 
ing babies  on  the  floor,  is  still  as  old  as  they. 
Swiftly  and  unconsciously  she  adjusts  herself 
to  them.  Her  joys  and  her  duties  change  and 
bring  her  growth. 

Only  the  o.  m.  seems  stationary,  her  children 
always  young,  her  round  of  life  unchanging. 
She  knows  that  she  is  slowly  crystallizing,  and 
only  prays  that  the  crystal  may  be  clear  and  many- 
faceted,  with  all  its  angles  true. 

Father  has  come  back  and  says  that  there  is 
199 


200  ROUND  ABOUT  CHICAGO 

nothing  on  earth  so  happy  as  an  old  maid  when 
she  "gives  up/' 

I,  the  o.  m.,  long  since  gave  up,  and  I  am  happy. 
Very  happy  through  the  long  sweet  summer  and 
the  lingering  golden  autumn.  But  now  the  silver 
moon  rides  high,  and  the  red  sun  seeks  its  sol- 
stice; and  with  the  longer  shadows  comes  a  faint, 
questioning  dread  of  the  lonely  winter — even  the 
winter  of  life. 


"  The  lonely  winter — even  the  winter  of  life." 


